


Riddle Chronicles

by Maerchenlaenderin



Series: HP-WIPs [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, F/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character-centric, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Orphanage, Self-Insert, Young Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-06-12 14:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 30,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15342105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maerchenlaenderin/pseuds/Maerchenlaenderin
Summary: Oh.Bloody. Hell.I knew I could be a bit thick sometimes, but that was bad, even for me. I had been so focused on the books that I hadn’t thought about my surroundings at all. Old-timer cars. The clothes. People’s reactions to my skin tone. Heating systems. The non-existing regulations for orphanages. Those weren’t the eighties. I was in the bloody thirties! In the time of Tom Riddle! And… the boy I shared a room with… was THE Lord Voldemort!!!Or… would become him.Whatever.





	1. Chapter 1

Surprises weren’t anything I particularly liked. Well… no, that’s not true. I DID like surprises. Just none that landed me somewhere I couldn’t figure out how to get out of.  
Like right now.  
Frowning I threw another plate out of the window into nothingness. The blackness of vast, empty space had long lost its appeal to me. It was simply… black.  
A crash signified the plate had somehow returned into the apartment and smashed onto the ground. Just like the other things that I had used to check the apartment’s defences. Helpless rage bubbled inside of me. I had been in this stupid apartment for thirty-four whole days now. Four bedrooms, one living room, two bathrooms, a big kitchen, a small gym and a small library with books I had already read.  
Thankfully, the water worked and was drinkable. Also, there was more than enough food in the fridge and pantry, enough to last me for years, actually.  
I sincerely hoped I would get out earlier.  
For the third time now I jumped out of the window, not even surprised anymore when I landed on the apartment floor with an audible “Ooof!”  
“Oh, bloody hell!”, I screamed and kicked at the nearby sofa.  
Yeah, I wasn’t that good with being imprisoned. Even if it WAS a nice prison.  
Grumbling I picked up the shards of the plate and threw them into the trash that seemingly emptied itself whenever I closed it.  
I was so bored out of my mind that I had picked up doing one hour on the cross trainer in the morning and one in the evening. Around midday I made use of the punching bag to let out my frustrations. Between those I read some of the books in the library, though since I already knew them, I skimmed over some parts I knew to be unimportant or uninteresting, so it didn’t take long for me to finish them.  
Jeesh.  
I had taken to cooking lavish meals, just so I had something else to do. 

PLOP!  


…  
Plop…?

Blinking in confusion I peeped around the door frame separating the living room from the kitchen and… stared.  
There were two people half lying on the Sofa, half on the ground. The posture looked REALLY uncomfortable. But still, they seemed to be sleeping soundly.  
I remembered the day I had woken up here in a similar fashion, though I had nearly smashed my face in as I hadn’t expected to lie under a narrow table. And sitting up abruptly is not such a good idea when lying underneath a solid oak table, I tell you.  
Maybe I could make their arrival a little more… painless.  
…  
Or not.  
With an evil smile I threw a plate out of the window.  
One… Two… 

CRASH!

Two panicked squeaks echoed through the apartment, followed by hysterical screaming.  
I yawned and grinned. I hadn’t had that much excitement since… well… since I had landed here.  
But hey, maybe I was being a bit of an asshole there. 

“Good morning, sleepy-heads”, I greeted the two while calmly sweeping the shards together to depose of. They looked at me as if I had grown another head, and huddled together to protect themselves. From me.  
“Oh, come on!”  
I rolled my eyes. “I’m in the same boat as you two, I just arrived a few weeks before you did. Choose a bedroom, the left one is mine, the other three are empty. I’ll cook. Anything you don’t eat?”  
The two stared at me, though they edged closer to the doors I had pointed to. They seemed… frightened. Of me.  
While they chose their rooms, I chopped two chicken breasts, carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms, beans and zucchini, squeezed some lemon juice, mixed that with a bit of olive oil, spices, herbs and coconut milk, put everything into a casserole, sprinkled it liberally with mozzarella and put it in the oven. I then cooked some rice, washed a head of lettuce and set the table.  
It seemed the smells of the oven-chick’n’veggies did the trick to get the two girls out of their rooms, so I just motioned to the chairs and started serving them.  
“My name is Nina, by the way”, I informed them lightly and forced a smile onto my lips. I was glad my boring routine had been disrupted, but those two already got on my nerves without saying anything.  
“I don’t like mushrooms”, came the first complaint already. “And I don’t eat meat”, the second one grumbled.  
I could feel the slight tick in my left eyelid I always got when I was close to the end of my patience, which was ridiculous. Those two had only just arrived a few minutes ago. How could they be headache inducing already?  
“Eat… or starve”, I quoted from one of my favourite movies and shoved some food into my mouth to keep me from saying something I would regret later. They tentatively tried the food and pulled faces. Jeesh! I had explicitly asked them if there was anything they didn’t eat, and they hadn’t answered. So now they were stuck with this, and they wouldn’t get anything else until they had finished their food.  
Had I known they would be THAT ungrateful, I would have put the amount of pepperoncini in that I usually preferred, and not opted for a mild version.  
Brats.  
“So, what are your names?”, I asked, trying to get my animosity under control. Just what was up with me really?!  
They eyed me suspiciously, but told me their names. The redhead was called Annabelle. She looked like one. Small and willowy with red curls bouncing on her shoulders and freckles all over every piece of exposed skin… she was kind of cute. Or would be, if her attitude wasn’t that repugnant.  
Or was that just me? Was I too judgemental after my brief time without any human contact?  
The blonde was called Clarice. She was pretty as a doll and had a bit of the Barbie-flair going on. She was taller than me, but I supposed she had to be about ten years my junior. At the very least. Annabelle seemed a bit older, in her early twenties, maybe. 

After they had choked down the food I had made, I took them to work with doing the dishes and cleaning the table. I had never been a particularly tidy person when it was just me in my own apartment (it was clean, mind you, just not particularly tidy), but in the last few weeks I had found surroundings where everything had its place kind of… soothing. Anyway, after we had cleaned up I showed them to the bathroom I wasn’t using. They would have to share, I wasn’t going to put up with their attitude more that I would have to. And the both of them looked like they took their time in the morning.  
I also showed them the library. They were far more enthusiastic than I had been; obviously they found some books they hadn’t read yet.  
Figures.  
“Rules”, I stated then. “Bedroom rules: Keep your place tidy. I have no idea how many more people we will have to house here. Bathroom rules: Keep it tidy and clean. I will not lift a finger to clean it. And you won’t like me when I am pissed. Kitchen rules: Put everything back from where you took it. After every meal I want the place spotless. No one touches my spices. Living room rules: Put everything you use away again. No taking anything into your rooms without informing all others about it and asking if it is okay. Library rules: No taking out any books without putting the book title on the page with your name on it and putting a replacement card where you pulled it out. After returning it you cross out the book title and put it in the exact place it has been in before. Got it?”  
The two girls stared at me wide eyed. Yes, maybe I was a bit weird to them. I had been alone for over a month, dammit! I was allowed to be weird! And they really grated on my nerves. It wasn’t as if they had actually done anything to warrant my curt behaviour, but I just couldn’t… After weeks of pining for human contact I now just wished them gone again.  
Wonderful.

The two gave me mutinous looks and then disappeared together into one of their rooms. I sighed. I got the feeling I would start missing my solitude sooner rather than later. 

PLOP!  


…  
Plop? Again?

I frowned and turned around, only to see a black clad woman with black hair hanging over the back of the sofa. If I would have had to stay in that position, I was pretty sure I would puke my guts out after a minute.  
Oh, well. 

I cleared my throat.  
I cleared it again, louder.  
“Hey!”  
…  
Still nothing. Maybe I would have to use the same method as before… So, I took a plate and threw it out the window.  
One… Two… 

CRASH!

Nothing happened. 

I frowned harder and stared at the body contemplatively, while Annabelle and Clarice appeared again, looking worried. I simply started cleaning up the shards of the plate, before standing next to our newest addition.  
Was she dead?  
Two fingers on her pulse point showed me that her heart was still beating, at least. “What’s with her?”, Annabelle asked, sounding frightened. I just rolled my eyes. How the hell should I know?! So, I ignored her and pulled the unconscious girl properly onto the sofa, where I could look at her. She was older than I had expected, probably somewhere around my age, and obviously a metal head.  
I liked Manowar too, but I hadn’t tattooed the Band logo onto my throat.  
Whatever.  
I raised my hand and smacked her in the face. Clarice squeaked and Annabelle made a noise as if she wanted to interfere, but finally, finally the metal head opened her eyes. Wide.  
With a shocked expression her hand went to her cheek and she stared at me, bevor jumping to her feet, finding that she wasn’t as sure on her feet as she would have liked, paled and fell to the ground.  
“Hi there, I’m Nina”, I said, completely unconcerned, before turning around and pointing to the others, “this is Annabelle and that’s Clarice. Welcome to your new prison with the blackness of space outside the windows and a back-to-sender policy when one tries to leave.”  
She stared at me and I simply smiled noncommittally. Okay, I had to admit, maybe the time alone HAD made me into an asshole. An asshole without tact, to boot.  
Her eyes jumped around and took in her surroundings before resettling on me. “I’m Alice…”  
Another PLOP! had all of us turning around into the direction of the sound, expecting another girl, though… there was a glowing face hanging in the air.  
A… face. Glowing. And… hanging in the air.  
We all stared at it as if it would tell us what it wanted if we only looked at it hard enough. It just… hovered there.  
“Okay, I’m pretty sure that ups the creep-factor of this place”, I commented about a minute later, but it didn’t really bother me. Having been stuck in this place for over a month I was pretty sure there wasn’t much that would faze me anymore.  
“What the hell?!”, Alice growled in her raspy tone and looked from me to the face and back. “You just accept that?! Where are we? What are we doing here? How did I get here?!”  
I could only shrug though. How the hell should I know?!

“Oh, there now, finally! The loop must have stopped…”  
We resembled statues for a second, before all our eyes snapped to the face that seemed to have garnered an upper body and a voice while we had talked.  
It was a bald man, quite young, with dark kohl rimmed eyes. He was shirtless and… quite nice to look at, I had to admit.  
“I apologize for startling you, ladies”, the dude drawled and indicated a shallow bow, which looked… weird without legs or even hips.  
None of the others reacted, so it was obviously on me: “No problem…”  
The dude grinned. “Wonderful. So, before we come to the important part… do you have chocolate? I haven’t tasted chocolate in centuries!”  
My left eyebrow climbed up slowly, but I obediently got him a box of chocolate from the kitchen and held it out to him, staying just out of his reach myself, but making it possible for him to take one of the pralines.  
He chewed and moaned so lewdly I got the urge to cover the other girls’ ears. I didn’t move though.  
After clearing my throat the thing seemed to snap out of it and coughed. “As to why I’m here… I’m here to explain things to you.”  
He said that as if it explained everything and didn’t elaborate.  
“And WHAT exactly are you here to explain?”, I prompted. He really was getting on my nerves right now, especially as he started chuckling. “Why you’re here, of course!”  
Again, my left eyelid started to twitch. If he didn’t spill soon, I would sic the girls on him. All three of them. He wouldn’t be laughing anymore then…  
Somehow he seemed to read some of my thoughts on my face, because he cleared his throat nervously and shook himself. “All of you have died before your time”, he told us and I pulled a face. I was dead? I didn’t feel dead… “So, I cannot let you into the underworld. I can’t let you go back either though.”  
Wonderful. Would we be stuck in this apartment until it was our time then? I was pretty sure I would go mad!  
“Sooo, I took the liberty of preparing a few alternatives.”  
With this he waved his hand around and some piles of books appeared in front of him. My eyebrows rose again. Game of Thrones, Shadowhunters, Twilight, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Kate Daniels, Narnia, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Warrior Cats, Percy Jackson> and Eragon were lying around. I pulled a face. I couldn’t stand some of them. But still, what did he mean by ALTERNATIVES?  
Something collided with my shoulder and nearly had me sprawling on the floor. What the…?!  
Clarice had barged past me and thrown me out of the way to make a grab for the Twilight books. “MINE!!!”, she screeched and I blinked, completely overwhelmed. What the hell? She didn’t even know what these ALTERNATIVES would be!  
The naked dude just grinned though. “You’ve made your choice.”  
With that Clarice vanished into thin air.  
“Did you… did you just transport her into the books?”, I asked, forcing myself to stay calm as he just nodded, glee on his face. Okay then. My eyes wandered over the other books. Which one would I want to be in? I stopped at Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that would do the trick.  
“I don’t want to go into a book world, I just wanna go home!”, Annabelle whined and actually started crying, which had me rolling my eyes, before I could stop myself.  
What the hell?! I had never been this jaded, this indifferent to the pain of others!  
The glowing baldy just rolled his eyes though and snipped his fingers. Annabelle disappeared.  
“What… what did you do? Where is she?!”, I asked, slightly panicked, but the stranger just rolled his eyes again. “Back into your world, she just got born again. So, come on then, I don’t have all day!”  
Oh well. I had always wanted to live in Middle Earth. So…  
“I’ll take that”, Alice said and grabbed the books before vanishing.  
Wait… what?  
Uncomprehending I stared at the place where Tolkien’s masterpiece had lain just a few seconds ago.  
“Seriously?!”, I snarled and threw my hands in the air.  
Wonderful.  
Grudgingly I looked over my other possibilities. Eragon, Warrior Cats and Percy Jackson were obviously out. I didn’t like the first two and I would probably start screaming if I had to live through the inaccuracies in the third. Game of Thrones… I really didn’t want to die, so no to that one too.  
That left Shadowhunters, Harry Potter, Kate Daniels, Narnia and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I wasn’t one for drug-induced hallucinations, so Wonderland was off the table, and Kate Daniels just simply had too much blood, gore and sex in it. Shadowhunters would probably bore me after the first few years… So that only left Narnia and Harry Potter, both of them series I really liked, but I leaned towards Harry Potter.  
They might have war and Voldemort and Death Eaters, but at least they had showers and toothbrushes there.  
I sighed. “I’ll take Harry Potter”, I informed the dude and wanted to pick the series up, when he began speaking. “Good choice, good choice”, he muttered, “but I have watched you the last month. I think you would be bored, if I gave you the usual treatment…”  
The… usual treatment? What was that supposed to mean?!  
“Oh yes, I know…”  
And with that the whole collector’s box slammed into my chest.  
And everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, short chapter. Next one on Monday. :)

The first thing I noticed was pain. The second was that I couldn’t move.  
It was tight and dark and too hot and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move!  
Panicked I tried to get out, tried to kick, tried to claw my way out of wherever I was, but the space around my only got smaller and smaller. I could feel my heart picking up speed, could feel the adrenalin rushing through my body…   
The pressure on me grew, more and more until I thought it would crush me. Colourful dots were dancing in front of the darkness of my surroundings and I STILL COULDN’T BREATHE!!!

Suddenly, there was light. Light and weird smells and screaming. Someone was screaming.   
The pain in my shoulders intensified. I wanted to scream too, but my throat wasn’t working. I knew I was shivering, in shock, in…

PLOP!  
…  
Plop?

Cold air caressed my wet body and I could FINALLY move again. Something touched me and I lost the ground under my feet.   
What was happening?! I couldn’t see, everything was a white blur!  
A sharp pain on my backside brought me out of my stupor and I sucked in air. I breathed!  
Searing pain shot through my lungs and I couldn’t stop the pained scream that wrestled itself out of me. Weirdly it helped; the pain in my lungs lessoned, so I continued screaming and screaming, until the pain was gone and I didn’t have the strength to scream anymore.  
I was enveloped in some liquid and someone took the liberty to touch me, touch me in places no one had any business touching, but I was too weak to do anything about it. Then some kind of fabric was wrapped around me and I was placed on a warm surface. Warm… and soft.  
It… cooed.   
I wanted to get away from the surface, but I just felt so exhausted… I couldn’t seem to be able to move even a muscle… and I felt myself sliding under. I tried to fight it, didn’t want to be helpless in the face of whoever was in the room beside myself, but I couldn’t keep at it for long.  
Slowly, slowly everything dimmed. 

 

When I woke up, I was still alive. Still… unharmed. There was no pain, nothing. Whoever had been with me, wherever I had landed, had not hurt me. I felt warm and comfortable, though I could feel the first pangs of hunger.  
“I think she’s waking up!”  
Huh? There was still someone here! I opened my eyes as far as I could, which, weirdly, wasn’t very far, but I could only see vague blobs of beige in my white and grey world. One came closer, until I could identify it as a human’s face. A woman, probably. It came closer and closer and I froze. Why was the face so big? Had the stupid baldy brought me into a giant’s village?! Shit! Most giants weren’t as friendly as Hagrid’s half-brother!  
I panicked and wanted to get some more space between the giant and me, but all I managed to do was wave my arms around a bit and whimper.   
Warm hands picked me up and put me onto the warm, soft surface again that I now realized was the chest of a REALLY big woman. Something got stuck into my mouth and I immediately wanted to spit it out again.   
“Come on, sweetie, you need to drink. You want to grow up strong, don’t you?”, cooed the same voice as before.   
And then it hit me.   
I was a baby. A bloody fucking baby!!! Of course, baldy had said something about being reborn in the Harry Potter world, but somehow I had thought he’d meant to just put me there the way I was and not letting me be born again as a bloody baby!  
I wanted to groan, I wanted to scream, and… that’s exactly what my body did. As soon as I had thought about wanting to scream, it complied. Jeesh. The wailing even grated on my OWN nerves.   
“Oh, come on, sweetie, I know you’re hungry, but if you don’t drink it won’t help!”  
I didn’t want to be breast-fed! I was nearly 30, for fuck’s sake!  
Again there was something put into my mouth. A nipple, I realized, feeling queasy. But shit, I needed to eat and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get anything else…   
Oh, fuck it.  
Cursing baldy, fate and the woman who obviously had just birthed my new body, I started sucking and had nearly spit the milk out as soon as it met my tongue. I really was no picky eater, but that fluid was vile!!!  
Still, I DID want to grow. As soon as possible. And that would only be possible if I drank that disgusting concoction. With as much control as I could muster I forced myself to swallow, suck and swallow, suck and swallow.   
Do not puke!  
“Aw, I have never seen a baby feed this fast, usually it takes a few tries!”, an excited female voice said somewhere behind me. I suspected a nurse or doctor or midwife or something. “What will you guys call her?”  
There was silence for a while, before I could feel fingers stroking my head. “We will call her Emily. Emily Unukalhai Derringer.”


	3. Chapter 3

Emily?   
Seriously?  
And whatever the second name was. No idea how they would even write that.   
I tried not to pull a face, but it was hard. And all that scrunching up my facial muscles had the nipple sliding from my mouth. Relief was only short lived though, for it was immediately deposited in my mouth again.   
Joy.  
Hm… Derringer… I had never heard that name before, at least not in connection with the Harry Potter series. Did that mean I was a new muggleborn? I definitely wasn’t from a pureblood house, I was pretty sure I would recognize most of the names of the pureblood families.   
So… shit.   
I was a Slytherin through and through. How was I supposed to fit into that house while being a muggleborn? Just perfect. I would kill baldy if I ever encountered him again, that much I was sure of.

So… What to do now? I couldn’t do much at the moment. My mouth wouldn’t let me form words yet, I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t even grab anything, my coordination was that bad… Would I just simply be stuck in this body until I was finally able to articulate myself?   
Jeesh.  
At least I could hear and comprehend what went on around me. A small mercy.   
The sound of the door opening had me perk up my ears.   
“Unuk…”, a male voice stated softly, “how are you? And how is she?”  
The chest I was lying on seemed to shudder for a moment. “Sean!”, my… mother? Yeah, probably. So, my mother called out to the new arrival, sounding more than happy. “I can get up already and she is completely healthy too! Come on, come on, meet your daughter Emily!”  
I could hear steps coming closer and then a shadow leaning over me. So… that must be my new father then.   
“Can I… can I hold her?”, he asked, his voice choked, as if he was holding back tears. The body underneath me vibrated with laughter, before she plucked me up and gave me over to a body that was… definitely male. I didn’t really like his smell, he smelled of sweat and cheap cologne, but he seemed to love this little creature I now was immediately, so I just made a mental note to remind him to shower more often and to buy him some cologne that didn’t disturb me somewhere deep inside my mind, as soon as I was able to. 

 

Time passed.   
I hated being a baby. I was always either tired or hungry or uncomfortable because I couldn’t use the toilet on my own and my parents weren’t very keen on changing me. They did, obviously, but it was always preceded by a lengthy discussion about whose turn it was now. Usually my new mother did it, but she (understandably) didn’t like it and hurried through it, so it happened quite often that my backside was a bit raw. That part I found annoying. My new father was a bit more thorough, but he was at work most of the time and managed to get around it as much as possible too.   
Other than that they were okay. They cuddled me, played with me, fed me, dressed me up… that last part I really hated, but hey. Let them have their fun for a while.  
Slowly my eyes adjusted and my coordination improved. And I learned more about my new parents.   
My father’s full name was Sean David Derringer and he was one of several assistants to a diplomat assigned to Arabia. His parents had broken off contact with him when he had married my mother. He had no contact with anyone else from his side of the family.  
My mother’s full name before marriage had been Unukalhai Ephret Al’Zarii. She was from Arabia and had met Sean on one of his many business trips there, where she had charmed him so much he had married her within two months of their first meeting. Her parents hadn’t approved either, and had also cut her off. The only one in her family she still was in contact with was her brother Halil, who seemed to write her at least once a month. 

I could also finally see the two of them. Sean was a redhead. His hair stood wildly in all directions and his beard looked a bit scruffy, but his twinkling blue eyes and loads and loads of freckles made him look more roguish than bedraggled. I could see how he had charmed my mother into following him to the British Isles.   
My mother was the exact opposite. She was quite dark-skinned, with luscious locks of black hair, nearly black eyes, full lips and, as if in contrast to their softness, a sharp, aquiline nose. She always looked very stern, but when she smiled, it seemed as if the whole room lit up. 

When my father was at work and I had been fussed over enough, my mother painted. As far as I could tell, her art was amazing. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who thought that, so the selling of her paintings contributed quite a bit to our family’s income. She also seemed to have a weird friend who came over once a week, and only when my father was out. I did wonder if the two were having an affair, but I wasn’t really sure.   
The man never came into my room for the first four months of my new life, but always stopped in front of my door to ask if he could see me now. And always my mother’s answer was the same: “Not yet.”  
I didn’t really care though. I couldn’t change anything anyway, so why bother?

It was when I was in my fifth month, however, that something changed. My mother’s friend was there again and when he (again) asked, if he could see me, my mother opened the door to my nursery.   
The man was of Arabian descent also, but didn’t speak with a discernible accent like my mother did. He actually sounded very British, which was why I had previously thought him to be a lover rather than a family member, but now I wasn’t sure anymore.   
When he came to a stop in front of my crib, I looked at him. He wasn’t what I would call handsome. His face was marred by pockmarks, his nose looked like it had been broken quite a few times already and his eyes looked… dead, for lack of a better word.   
When his hands stroked my head though, they started to twinkle in happiness. “She has it, Unuk. She is Sahar. Your foolish dalliance with this Shal hasn’t diminished the spark. Get rid of him and then you two can come back with me.”  
My mother balked. “What are you saying?! That’s my husband you are talking about!” The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “The Shal won’t understand! Did you tell him? Does he know you are Sahar? Does he know SHE will be Sahar, when it manifests? How are you going to explain to him when her toys will fly around the room? When the food she doesn’t want to eat vanishes in front of his eyes? She is SAHAR, Unuk! And he is not!”  
“No!”, my mother said decidedly, “No, I won’t leave my husband, I won’t let Emily grow up without a father!”  
He started. “EMILY?!”, he suddenly roared, “You gave her the name of that Shal???”  
I stared at the man in awe, as his black, oiled locks started to curl in on themselves and something crackled in the air. But my mother wasn’t intimidated: “Yes! Her Name is Emily Unukalhai Derringer! And I am Unukalhai Ephret Derringer! We are a family! You will not take us!”  
He looked as if she had hit him in the face. “Have it your way then. Tell him, though! I can feel Sahar sparking inside of her, it won’t be long now!”  
He then turned to me again, his eyes suddenly tortured. “I will give you protection, little one. I fear fate has something bad planned for you…”   
With those words I could feel something warm and sparkling sliding over me, even though I couldn’t see anything. Without my conscious cooperation my throat formed a surprised sound. “She can feel it, see?”, he growled, but then seemed to get himself under control again.   
“You’ve made your choice, cousin. As of now you aren’t part of our family anymore. I take back our protection. I really do hope you won’t live to regret this decision…”  
With this he disappeared with a crack and when my mother started wailing, it finally, FINALLY clicked. My mother was a witch. She had married a muggle and I… I was a halfblood.   
And I had magic too.


	4. Chapter 4

When my father came home, my mother hid me away. I could hear screaming and some things breaking, but after a while it was quiet again.   
When my mother came into my room with her left eye starting to swell shut, I had to bite my tongue to stop the screaming. My father joined her soon after, though, and I stared stupidly at the angry red lashes on his face. They seemed to have been going at each other quite… viciously. And now they seemed to be lovey-dovey again.  
Jeesh, I was SO glad babies didn’t have to worry about relationships. 

Over the next months I gained the ability to crawl, to sit, to stand and to waddle around. My parents seemed to think I was a genius because my development was so fast, but if you only relearn something you have known how to do for decades, it really puts things in perspective. My first word had been “mama”, my second “dada”, from there on I didn’t hold myself back. I trained my speech-apparatus just as I trained my body to walk and my hands to precisely obey my commands. So, when I was nearly two years old, I was actually acting more like a six-year-old.   
My parents were ecstatic. They thought about enrolling me in school years earlier, since I started to show signs of boredom with anything appropriate for my age. Not that it hadn’t bored me before, but after months and months of the same stupidity I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of playing the dumb toddler.  
Since I seemed to go wherever I wanted, my parents had taken up putting me in some kind of play pen when they wanted to be alone. And even though I was far too intelligent and mature for my age, I was still pretty small and the hatch was far out of my reach.   
Pity. 

It was one of those times my mother had stuck me inside of the play pen to do some cleaning, when a crash sounded. I couldn’t see anything, being cooped up in my nursery, but I could hear my mother’s screams, sounds of fighting and then… nothing.   
I was sure my eyes were as big as saucers. I… could do nothing. I knew I couldn’t get out of the pen, I had tried dozens of times, and… even if I had gotten out, what exactly could I have done anyway? I was two bloody years old!  
The hollow sound of slow steps was audible, coming closer and closer to the door that separated my room from the rest of the apartment.   
Shit.  
I wasn’t used to being helpless. I was a martial artist and could wield words like weapons if I so chose, but as a two-year-old I was as defenceless as… well… a child.   
Maybe, if I was completely quiet, he would not open the door. Maybe he would just leave me alone.   
The steps stopped in front of my door.   
I could feel my heart racing and my tiny body starting to sweat. I couldn’t look away from the door, when the doorknob slowly turned and the door opened.   
It was a man. He looked completely deranged, wild-eyed and not in possession of all his faculties. A manic half-smile turned his face into a grimace as he saw me and held up a knife with something red dripping down the blade.   
I immediately knew that my mother was dead.   
He came closer, and as much as I wanted to run away, I was still in the pen, unable to get out.   
I was so scared that I didn’t immediately react when he made a grab for my arm and pulled me to my feet.  
“What a pretty little birdie…”, he muttered and the stink of his breath enveloped me. His fingers hurt more than they should and I couldn’t suppress a whimper.   
Do something!, my brain screamed at me, but I wasn’t able to move, had no idea how I should react, until… all shock just seemed to vanish and my mind suddenly cleared. My eyes narrowed and I gripped the man’s arm with my free hand before burying my teeth in it with all the force I could muster. He bellowed in pain and rage, ripped his arm away and backhanded me so hard I rammed into the wall behind the pen. Something wet was dripping down my face and I realized he had never put down the knife. It must have bitten deep.   
My head pounded from the impact of the hand and the wall, my shoulder smarted as well, but I couldn’t feel the expected stinging where the blade must have cut into my skin.   
The man still held his bitten arm when he stomped over, took aim and kicked. I wasn’t fast enough, his foot connected with my side and I crashed into the wall again. Something cracked inside of me and I couldn’t get any air into my lungs.   
Shit.   
Slowly, I really started to panic. If I didn’t have an idea soon, I would die here and there, but I couldn’t breathe! My heart raced and I desperately struggled for air, but none managed its way into my lungs.   
Fuck, fuck, fuck!  
The man just stood there… and laughed. Laughed, while I struggled to get even the tiniest amount of air into my body. God, how I hated him! He had killed my mother who might not have been the best mother imaginable, not like my real mother, but she had been nice and affectionate and probably the only one who would have been able to teach me once my magic manifested…   
…  
Wait.  
I was a witch. The sudden thought forced my body to relax and I was able to suck in some much needed air.   
I was a bloody witch. I might not have a wand, but I would not let this deranged muggle kill me too!   
I could still feel the magic the strange man hat imbued me with one and a half years ago. I could feel it connecting with something inside of me, bubbling in response to my fear and rage, creeping up and building, building… When the man came closer, I simply stared at him, eyes intent on murder. And then that thing inside of me broke free, formed a spear and… hit my attacker in the chest.  
He froze and stared, before his legs gave out underneath him and he crumbled to the ground.   
I stared. Was he… dead?  
I was careful when crawling closer to the body lying on my nursery’s floor. I wasn’t sure if I should wish for the stranger to be dead or for him to be still alive. If he was dead, he was no threat to me anymore. On the other hand, if he was dead, I had just killed someone. It might have been in self-defence, but that didn’t make it any better.   
Two fingers on his pulse point confirmed that his heart was still beating.   
Well… shit.  
I had three choices now. One: stay and hope for my father to return before the man woke up again. Two: leave the apartment and seek shelter with neighbours, leaving the man to maybe disappear and try his luck another time. Three: Make sure he never would be a threat to me ever again.  
I swallowed nervously. The safest and most logical choice would obviously be the third.   
My eyes flicked to the bloody knife lying two feet away from me, and I picked it up before returning to the stranger’s side and staring at his pale face. I might be taking a life there, but it was done to protect myself, as I wasn’t able to do so on my own in this body. So there was no shame in attacking someone who couldn’t defend himself.   
Having made up my mind, I gripped the knife with both my small hands stabbed it into the unresponsive man’s neck. It was harder than I had anticipated, and I slipped for the first few times, leaving messy bloody streaks on his throat, before it finally sank into the place where his jugular was located.   
The feeling of the blade sinking into flesh was revolting. It felt like me trying to prepare a chicken breast at first, but the knowledge that it was a human’s neck was… indescribable.   
Red liquid spurted out and coated my hands. The smell of unwashed male was covered up by the coppery smell of freshly spilled blood and my stomach couldn’t deal. I vomited all over the now twitching body until there was nothing left inside of me to come out and the body lay motionless in the stillness of death.   
I just sat there, staring at him. It had been the first time I had killed anything. I could trap and shoot and fish, I could skin and gut animal carcasses and I had put make-up on dead people to prepare them for their funerals as a summer job, but… I had never killed anything. Even on fishing holidays my friend had been the one to end the fishes’ suffering that I had pulled out of the ocean and filleted afterwards…  
And now I had killed a human being.  
My stomach cramped again and I retched out some yellow bile, but there was nothing more that could have come out this way.  
The air stank of blood and vomit and urine and shit, now that the man’s muscles had relaxed completely and had lost everything in him.   
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.   
My breath came in short puffs and my whole body shivered uncontrollably. I was still in control of my faculties, so I recognized the symptoms of shock, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what one had to do in that situation.   
Just… just what should I do now? Another bout of retching had me turning to the side and sharp pain shot through me, originating in my side.   
Fuck.  
I was pretty sure at least one of my ribs was broken. The pain did have a positive effect too, though, it pulled me out of my despair and let me look at the situation more or less logically.   
There was a dead man lying on the floor of my nursery. I would never be able to cover that up. What I could do, though, was trying to cover up who was responsible for that death. Now, with something to do and a rough plan, I got busy. It didn’t take long for me to arrange the man’s hand so it looked as if he had stabbed himself. I couldn’t do anything about the messy cuts, but I sincerely hoped that no one would think a two-year-old capable of murder.   
After that, my mother came to mind. How I had forgotten her, I had no idea. I was in some kind of haze and didn’t really know what I was doing, but in pain I got up and stumbled out of the room and in the direction of the living room, where I thought the fight had taken place.   
There she was. Her neck was lying at a weird angle, her chest was ripped open by the amount of stabs she had received and her eyes stared into nothingness, permanently frozen in a look of horror.   
I retched again, but there was nothing more for my stomach to lose, so I just collapsed beside her and touched her face, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t stare at me anymore.   
Gods, this was so fucked up!  
A sob managed to find its way out of me, but it was only the first of many.


	5. Chapter 5

Sightlessly I stared at the grey building in front of me. After a twenty minutes’ drive in some weird old-timer we had now reached our destination.   
My father’s fingers hat clamped on the steering wheel, while I stood outside in front of his window with a small bag in my hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at me.   
It had been this way since the day our little family had been broken apart.   
One of the neighbours had reported the broken door and the police had come to find me sobbing over my mother’s body, the body of a stranger in the nursery. They had immediately concluded that this man had been the murderer, and that he had tried to murder me too, but for some reason had decided to kill himself midway. They didn’t question his motives, as it turned out he had escaped from an insane asylum only days prior.  
My father though, having been notified by the police and reaching the apartment only minutes later, had looked at me as if he knew. As if he knew what I had done. And as if he thought it was my fault my mother was dead.   
From that day onward he hadn’t been able to look at me. I had stayed in a hospital with strangely vintage looking equipment until I was declared fit to go home, though I would probably carry a scar from my nasal bone to my left earlobe for all my life.   
My father had tried for two months afterwards to get our life back on track. He couldn’t pass the place his wife’s body had lain in, though, and he also couldn’t step foot into my nursery. And he couldn’t look at his own daughter. So, he had decided to do the only thing he could think of: He brought me to an orphanage.   
“I am not qualified to raise you”, he said quietly to the steering wheel, while trying to strangle it. “You are like her. You aren’t like me. I can’t… I just… I just can’t!”  
With that he drove off. Without looking at me even once.   
Oh, I had really lucked out this time. If I compared those two to my real parents… there just was no comparison.   
I sighed. Okay, orphanage it was then. I just had to stay focused for nine more years, then I would be in Hogwarts. And with my knowledge of the books, I wouldn’t have even the slightest problem altering some teeny-tiny details like… Snape’s death, for example. Uuuh, Snape! I was really looking forward to meeting the potions master. He was my absolute favourite in the series, directly followed by Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and Victor Krum.   
But first, I had to survive the next few years in a bloody orphanage. It probably wouldn’t be fun, but I’d manage. I always managed.   
So, I went up to the porter and gave him the letter my father had written. He stared at me bewildered and I looked at him with big, round eyes and stuck my thumb into my mouth while grabbing my small bag tight, as if I needed a lifeline. His face immediately softened. Even though my hair was black, my skin was darkish and my features were rather foreign (which made a big difference here, I had learned), I was still a small child.   
“What’s your name, sweetie?”, he asked me after trying to make himself smaller and less threatening. I let my thumb out of my mouth and looked at him with big eyes. “Em”, I answered, making my voice sound small and intimidated. And yes, I didn’t like the name Emily either. My mother’s cousin was right, it didn’t suit a witch. Maybe I should start telling people my name was Unuk. Or Emmaline, that sounded at least close enough to Emily to seem plausible.  
“Em, that’s a pretty name”, the porter said and smiled reassuringly. “How old are you?”   
I looked at him, like I was considering his question, before holding up two fingers, smiling shyly.  
He melted then and there. Hah, I was good! It probably helped that my virtually black eyes were nearly too big for my face, which aided the look I was trying to project.   
“Well, come on then, sweetie, let’s get you inside.”  
I nodded and took the offered hand, letting the burly man lead me to the head matron, who looked at me exasperated, the dark smudges under her eyes predominant. The porter handed her the letter, which she opened and read, before sending me a sharp look. She said nothing to me though and turned to the man instead: “Get her a bed in Room sixteen and some clothes, will you? We’re short-staffed, I don’t have the time to do the rundown.”  
He just nodded and took me by the hand again to lead me through the cold, grey corridors. There was an eerie silence that didn’t fit with what I had seen from orphanages in my reality, and it seemed strangely empty. Although, it WAS a school day. After a while I started hearing low murmuring and clanking.   
“It’s lunch”, the porter explained with a kind smile and I nodded. That explained a lot. The sounds quieted the farther away we got from the big double doors, behind which obviously was the dining room. We took two sets of stairs upwards, before my guide stopped in front of a door with the number 16 scrawled on it in messy black scrawl. “Here we are”, he stated and opened the door to a room approximately the size of my living room at home with two triple bunk beds, all full, and four cribs that looked far too small for a two-year-old such as me, but I obviously couldn’t be picky. The porter deposited me at the only crib that seemed unoccupied and stroked my hair affectionately.   
“You’ll be fine here, sweetie”, he told me soothingly and smiled again, before leaving me, a two year old child, to my own devices in a strange place. Yay. If that indicated how well the people here were trained to handle children, this was going to be a fun time.  
The beds looked ratty, old and dirty. The blankets were quite threadbare in places and the pillows lumpy. If there even were any. I could only see three altogether on the ten beds from where I was standing. Each of the beds had a small chest of drawers and designated space in the single wardrobe in the room. There was also a rickety desk and a chair that looked like it would collapse every second now.   
There weren’t many personal items lying around, so either they were all very clean (which I doubted from the state the room was in), didn’t have much stuff (probable) or hid everything they owned for fear of it getting stolen. I feared the latter. Children could be really vicious, I knew. I had been bullied in school until I showed them I wouldn’t take their abuse any longer, but those had all been kids from middle class families. These kids here probably had to fight for every little scrap.   
My stomach felt a little queasy. Weren’t there controls and regulations in place for orphanages in the eighties? It didn’t look like the orphanages I knew from my reality, that much was for sure.   
The door opened and a harried matron came inside, stopping when she saw me. I looked at her with my best expression of a helpless, overwhelmed little girl.   
“Ye new?”, she asked and I nodded shyly, while kneading the hem of my shirt. She just sighed. “I’ll get ye a blanket.”   
With this she left again, only to reappear two minutes later with a ratty old blanket in her arms. “There ye go, sweetie.”  
Then she gave me a piece of bread. “And just in case ye’re hungry, me dear.”  
I grabbed the bread and hid it under my shirt before looking at her from under my lashes. “Thank you, Mam”, I mumbled in my best little girl’s voice and smiled shyly again, while giving her a wide-eyed stare out of tear-filled eyes, which seemed to make her melt.   
Gosh, I should have tried my hand at acting in my former life, I had definitely earned an Oscar for that performance.   
…  
Wait, did they have Oscars in the eighties?   
I really had no idea.   
The matron patted my head and left again, so I could get settled. Which meant… snapping the blanket a few times to remove as much of the dust and dirt as possible and hanging it over the crib to air it out a bit. I was no fan of the musty smell the fabric emitted. My little bag had two changes of clothes in it, my mother’s necklace and a stuffed camel I had had since my second birth. The necklace, a silver arrowhead with Arabic script where the winding was situated, I immediately wore and hid under my shirt, my clothes got stuffed into the chest of drawers (the piece of bread I hid behind them) and my camel went into my bed. If anyone tried to take one of my things from me, they would have to face my wrath. And I wasn’t particularly squeamish.   
Distant noise alerted me to the end of lunch time and just a few minutes later the door opened to reveal a group of girls in ratty clothes that seemed too big for their scrawny bodies. I thankfully had never been round, had always been rather slim and petite, even as a baby (my mother had used to call me “rump with four twigs”), so I didn’t stand out too much, but I had never hungered in my two years of life here and it showed. Besides, my clothes were clean and of good quality, something every one of them noticed.   
“’ello”, I greeted them with a watery smile, just like I’d practiced. I needed to get these people on my side. They just looked at me and stared. I was pretty sure that the fluctuation rate of children was quite high here, so it had to be because of my looks. I hadn’t seen anyone else with skin such as mine, except my mother’s and my mother’s cousin of course.   
Weird.   
But we probably just were in a very white neighbourhood. Still, they continued to stare.   
I hiked up the timidity and blinked at them unsure. “Me Em”, I stated and pointed to my chest. I actually had no idea how two-year-olds were supposed to talk, and since my parents had been of the opinion I was a genius, I was pretty sure fluent speech was nothing I should be portraying here. I would have to observe others my age.   
The obviously eldest of the lot (I guessed she had to be around 12, but I wasn’t sure) cursed quite colourfully and looked at me disdainfully. “Another one I have to look after? The other rooms only have one or two dwarves, why do they always send them to me?!” The other older girls didn’t look too happy either. They would just have to cope though, I was not going to let myself be pushed around.   
She just rolled her eyes though and threw herself onto the bed with the others following her example. They then started talking school. Funny, I thought school in Britain lasted the whole day…  
Anyway, it didn’t take long for them to get bored and to leave the room, and the eldest girls grabbed the hand of one of the younger ones each, I was with the girl who had cursed before.   
That probably was why they always put the small children in this room, the girls seemed to look after us really well. They might be grumbling, but my caregiver showed me around, tried to help me on the toilet (which I vehemently declined) and brought me outside to the play area.   
It was… depressing, to say the least. It was completely made of concrete, with just one tree with one swing on it, and a small pebble hill over which the kids could climb.   
Such joy and happiness in the place I would have to spend the next nine years in. Yay. 

A commotion drew my attention away from the pebbles back to the tree, where a group of guys had come together. My eyebrows drew together and I started in that direction, only to be stopped by the hand holding mine.   
“Better not go there”, the girl, whose name I still didn’t know, said warningly, but I couldn’t just leave it be.   
I knew those kinds of commotions.   
So, I just looked at her and pointed at the guys. “There”, I said determinedly and my caregiver sighed after a few seconds of hesitation. She led me over, and soon I could see a young boy through their legs, huddled into a ball. And they… they were throwing stones at him.  
What the hell?!  
Something cold clamped around my heart. Yes, I might have experienced bullying in my time, but they had never thrown stones at me while laughing cruelly and calling me a monster.   
Too quick for the girl holding my hand to react I pulled my hand back and squeezed through the legs separating me from my goal. I was not going to let them bully that poor boy, when I could do something about it.  
Bursting from the group I threw myself in front of the boy and got hit by a small stone in the shoulder, but aside from a little wince I didn’t let it deter me.   
“Why hurt?”, I asked the perplexed boys with theatrically big, watery eyes, then I turned around and slung my tiny arms around the cowering shoulder. “Not hurt, not hurt…”, I murmured and petted his elbow awkwardly.   
Jeesh, I really had no idea how to act as a two-year-old! But still, I would do my best.   
“Em, get away from him!” The panicked voice of my new caregiver brought a frown to my face. Jeesh, it was just a boy! “He hurt, me help, me make better!”  
The boys didn’t seem to know what to do. The implications of that brought a pang to my chest. Obviously no one had ever stood up for that boy or, as it seemed, touched him out of their own free will.   
I had no idea why, he didn’t smell bad, at least, though I couldn’t see his features. Maybe he was disfigured? That was quite possible. Children could be very cruel to those that looked different if they didn’t understand those differences.   
“Em, he’s… he’s a bad boy. Come here now, I will show you a new game!”  
A bad boy? Seriously? Only with much self-control did I manage not to roll my eyes. I just clung to him even more.  
“Fwiends help?”, I asked quietly and my caregiver sighed. “Tom has no friends, Em. But you do. Come on now, I’ll introduce you to those friends.”  
No friends? That was… sad. Really sad.   
“Me be fwiend. Tom fwiend”, I stated and smiled broadly at the boy that had now deigned to look at me, completely flabbergasted.  
He… was not disfigured. He was actually quite pretty. Black hair, dark blue eyes and pale, sallow skin, soft lips and high cheekbones that promised to reveal a heartbreaker in a few years (and with enough nourishment), I’d bet. He was definitely younger than my caregiver, probably around… ten? Maybe younger?   
What the hell was so monstrous about him?!  
No matter. I would not stand for someone getting bullied. Never had, never would.   
“No, Em, you don’t want that!” The girl actually sounded a bit panicked now. What the hell?! Still, I raised my head defiantly. “Tom ‘n’ Em fwiends. No hurt fwiends”, I stated and made a grab for the pale hands. His skin wasn’t soft like mine was, it was calloused and cracked and an ugly bruise coloured its back.   
The boy didn’t seem to know how to react at first, but after a few moments his fingers closed over mine and he held onto me, shaking a little. I smiled at him, the brightest smile I was capable of, and tugged at him. “Play?”  
Under the astonished eyes of the boys and all the others who had joined them in the last few minutes Tom got up and stumbled after me, while I babbled happily at my new… “fwiend”.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I... forgot yesterday >_<
> 
> And I have to apologize again: I won't be able to post next week, but the next chapter will go online on August 27th. :)

Tom didn’t know how to play games, so I invented some we could play together. Even when the games got sillier and sillier, because I had no idea what a two-year-old would like, he still didn’t push me away, didn’t roll his eyes or whatever; he stayed at my side and dutifully played with me. I somehow even thought he was actually enjoying this.   
Sometimes I caught him looking at me in a strange way and I could feel pangs of pain and pity go through my body. The poor boy had obviously never known friendship, and he wasn’t used to being touched in a way that didn’t hurt. That much I had gleaned from his flinches whenever I touched him unexpectedly. But he was patient with me, polite and after a while I realized he also tried to… protect me. From everything. From the ground, from a branch, from a sharp stone on the ground where I wanted to sit down… And he looked at me in wonder.   
When it was time to go to lunch, he even picked me up and carried me, even though I had to be too heavy for his small frame, and when I didn’t want to sit in the rickety children’s stool he let me sit on his lap.  
He was so cute, how the hell could I not like him? Jeesh, had I been in my original body, I was sure I would have adopted him on the spot!  
After dinner he wanted to bring me to my room, but I insisted on seeing where he slept first, just in case something happened. I needed to protect him from the other children, so I would have to weasel into every aspect of his life. Starting with this.   
He… had a room of his own. It was more of a closet, really, but obviously either no one wanted to share a room with him or it was for his own protection. I looked around the tiny space, calculating. There was a ratty mattress, a desk under the barred window and a wardrobe that looked like it would be falling apart in the next minutes.   
Hm… If I wanted to protect him, it would serve me best to live in the same room. And I wouldn’t have to share my room with nine others...   
Gosh, I could be such an asshole sometimes. But hey, I was pretty sure he needed the company anyway.   
So, when Tom brought me back to my room (the girls all tittered and tried to hide), I pulled him to my bed and directed the confused boy to take the mattress and blanket from it, while I grabbed my bag and put the clothes, the piece of bread and the stuffed camel inside again, and pulled the (still confused) boy back to his room. There, he finally seemed to get what I was trying to do.   
And yes, I could be VERY pushy.  
“You can’t stay with me!”, he finally managed to get out, “you’re a girl!”  
I cocked my head and looked at him for a few seconds, then I smiled. “Bwother. Now fam’ly.”  
His mouth opened and closed a few times, before his shoulders sank in defeat. Hah. Still, I didn’t want him looking defeated. In a moment of rare brilliance I grabbed my stuffed camel and gave it to him. “Yous.”  
He stared at the camel, then at me, then at the camel again, overwhelmed by a situation he didn’t understand. He swallowed. “That’s… that’s very nice of you, Em, but you… you won’t want to be friends with me anymore when you… when you see…”  
He broke off.   
When I saw… what?  
“Bwother. Fam’ly”, I said stubbornly, crossing my arms in front of my chest and looked at him challengingly. In some kind of helpless gesture he threw his arms up and sat down.   
Now that I was where I wanted to be, I was able to look at him more closely. He was really pretty. And really thin. His clothes were even rattier than those of the others and (that much I had noticed while we were playing already) he was covered in bruises. The area around his left eye was starting to change colour to a purplish blue and had swollen quite a bit in the last hours, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. Something else seemed to be on his mind though, whatever that was.  
Slowly I crawled closer, until I could sling my arms around his torso. He needed the contact of another, I could feel that – and cuddling was the best cure for any psychological problems anyway, I had gleaned in my former life. And chocolate, obviously, but that would have to wait… a few more years. Until I went to Hogwarts. Although… He probably would be of age when I went…   
Hesitantly two arms crept around my little body and pulled me closer to a bony chest. Oh yes, he needed the hug. I did too, though, so what the hell. Hiding a grin I crawled onto his lap to reach him easier and played monkey.   
In that moment I loved being a little child. I had always loved cuddles, but when being a nearly thirty-year-old it was kind of weird if you did that. No one thought twice about a little girl addicted to cuddling though.   
“Tom like”, I mumbled into his faded shirt. That guy was love-starved if I had ever seen the like. And I was the perfect person to give it to him. And for the next nine years I had nothing better to do anyway. 

 

I had fallen asleep on Tom’s bed. It had been nice and warm, which was good, the threadbare blanket I had been given wouldn’t have done shit against the cold in this house. Didn’t they have a heating system? Jeesh.   
A bell rang loudly, throwing everyone still asleep out of their dreams and back into reality. Tom had long been awake though. Me… not so much.   
When it rang, I practically jumped out of my skin and nearly broke Tom’s nose. Hm. Tom’s nose that was situated in a face that was not discoloured at all. I was certain he had had a black eye yesterday, but this morning there was just… nothing there. It was completely gone. Curious I poked the area around his eye until he grabbed my finger, looking… worried.   
Shit.   
Was he magical too?  
Then I wouldn’t have to leave him when I went into the magical world!  
Although… wait. Then HE would leave ME in two years!  
Was that why the others called him a mons… ter…

Oh.   
Bloody. Hell.

I knew I could be a bit thick sometimes, but that was bad, even for me. I had been so focused on the books that I hadn’t thought about my surroundings at all. Old-timer cars. The clothes. People’s reactions to my skin tone. Heating systems. The non-existing regulations for orphanages. Those weren’t the eighties. I was in the bloody thirties! In the time of Tom Riddle! And… the boy I shared a room with… was THE Lord Voldemort!!!  
Or… would become him.   
Whatever.  
“No hurt”, was what I got out, as not to alert Tom to my inner freak-out. I had always said the poor boy only needed some love not to go down the path of his future self. And now I was able to provide that. To someone I had started to actually like without knowing who he was.   
…  
Oh, bloody hell, I would just act as if I didn’t know the little tidbit that this boy would one day become a racist mass murderer. 

“No hurt, good!”  
With this I threw myself at the boy who had looked guarded, like he had expected me to back away and shun him like all the others.   
Not with me, my friend.  
“Bwother good!”  
He seemed… out of his element again and patted my head a bit awkwardly.   
“You don’t find that… odd…?”, he asked hesitantly and I cocked my head. “Whas odd?”  
“What IS odd”, he corrected me and combed his fingers through his hair, while a small, hesitant smile crept onto his lips. “Fine. You can stay with me. We… we’ll be a family, just you and me.”  
My eyes grew big. I… hadn’t expected that of him. “But… you’re not allowed to leave, understand? You belong to me now.”  
Okaaay… that was more the boy I had expected, now that I knew who he was. His eyes glittered a bit… possessively. Not quite creepy, but close. But what the hell. I didn’t WANT to leave anyway. I liked the kid. And creepy wasn’t necessarily bad anyway, right?  
…  
Right?!

“Fam’ly”, I responded, smiling broadly. “Exactly”, he answered, the grin widening and somehow becoming even creepier. “We’ll be Tom and Em Riddle. They won’t take you from me.”  
Oookay then.   
Weird. And not exactly what I’d had in mind, but whatever. Maybe I really could be a good influence on him.   
Or something.   
At least I now had a purpose in this life.   
“We need to get up now, I have to go to school…” He grimaced. “But remember: We’re family now. That means we can only trust each other. You will only trust me, you understand?”  
Okaaay, somehow this had gotten intense rather quickly… Still, I nodded.   
Was he trying to form me into the first of his loyal followers?   
It… certainly felt like it.   
He got dressed quickly and I wordlessly held out the piece of bread I had gotten the day before to him and he devoured it. He wouldn’t get lunch that day and the other kids would never let him near the breakfast tables, so dinner was the only meal he would be able to take.   
Bloody hell, I really understood more and more how he became who he… would be in the future.   
Damn, those tenses got confusing when stuck in the past!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry, my plane was late yesterday, so I got home in the early morning hours... But here is the new chapter. Have fun. :)

My worries were not warranted at all for the most part. Tom protected me and I protected him. Somehow the other boys were hesitant to hit a two-year-old girl. It wasn’t like I had counted on that or anything…   
I would never. Ever.  
The matrons and even the pastors that came every Sunday soon got over their initial panic and outrage, especially when they realized I had started calling myself “Em Riddle” and called Tom “bwother”.   
They let us be.   
I got quite proficient in squirreling away food for the both of us while Tom and the rest of the older children were at school, so we didn’t have to go hungry all the time. Without the gnawing hunger and the boys always abusing him, he also didn’t get into as much trouble. Even the matrons said I was a good influence on him. I once had heard a priest say I had “tamed the devil’s child”.   
What a joke.   
Tom had started teaching me correct and fluent speech. I might have learned it a lot faster than any other kid, but I was tired of pretending. And he started teaching me how to read and write, for which I (obviously) showed quite the aptitude.   
The other orphans kept away from the both of us. Tom still was the creepy one and according to them I wasn’t too far behind.   
Okay, so maybe Tom WAS rubbing off on me a little.

On the other hand, the by now nine-year-old was possessive. Like… REALLY possessive. I had made him an amulet out of a pretty pebble and some wire I had found for his birthday, and put it on an entwined piece of fabric from my clothes that I had outgrown two months ago, so he could wear it around his neck, and a matron had tried to touch it. Had I not been there, he would have killed her right here and there. I knew because when another orphan tried to take it from him (it had come out quite pretty, if I dare to say so myself), he jumped him and choked him until a matron and a priest managed to pull him off.  
Four days of solitary confinement for him – with no food or blanket and barely any water. Not that I had let him starve or freeze, mind you. I smuggled in some water and a few pieces of bread and carrots, together with his blanket that I hid again every morning. And I sat in front of his window every day and talked with him to alleviate the boredom.  
Anyway, he never took that amulet off.   
But that wasn’t all.   
He didn’t like me talking with other people. He gritted his teeth if I made nice with the matrons and cooks, but whenever a couple came to adopt a child, he hid me away. He also didn’t like me interacting with other children. According to him, I was his. I shouldn’t need more than him. Didn’t I love him? Was he not enough for me?  
Oh, I recognized his little psychological games. He was good at it, but I had had two boyfriends who had had far more experience in the game than he had.   
Still, I complied. I didn’t want to play with the other children anyway. And I didn’t want to get adopted. Not that there was even a chance, girls with skin like mine were usually only there to be stared at.   
What he didn’t realize for quite some time though, was that I was able to use that same technique too. Even on him. I got him to stop arguments, got him to give back toys he had stolen and got him to let me sleep in his bed (okay, the last one wasn’t THAT hard to achieve).  
When he found out, he was mad for about ten minutes, before my kicked-puppy-look softened him up again.   
Yes, the big, bad Lord Voldemort had a soft spot for the kicked-puppy-look. 

Somehow we had both wrapped each other around our respective little fingers, weird as that was.

It was my third birthday when something changed though.   
I had only known the 2nd of June was my birthday when the Head Matron gave me a pencil as a gift and grunted out “Happy Birthday”. I was actually quite happy about it, because first, I now knew the date of my birth, and second, I had just broken my last pencil the day before.   
Tom though was furious, because he hadn’t known and therefore hadn’t prepared a gift for me. So he immediately stormed off, just to come back two hours later with a teeny tiny cake in his scratched up hands. He looked like he had had to fight four dogs to get this cake. And as much as I felt touched by that gesture, as much as I wanted to just shove the sweet treat into my mouth, I insisted he let me treat his wounds first.   
When we came back to our room, the cake was gone. 

Tom stood there shell-shocked for a few seconds, before a dark cloud seemed to draw around him.   
“Ah… Tom? Tom?!”  
I plucked at his sleeve to get his attention, but he just brushed me off and left the room.   
My stomach felt like an icy hand had gripped it and squeezed. I knew the feeling of terror very well, the day the stranger had broken into our house, had murdered my mother and had tried to kill me too was something I still saw in my dreams regularly.   
This was different though. I wasn’t scared of what would happen to him or me, I was scared of what he would do to whoever had taken this damned cake. And everyone else who stood in his way.   
Hastily I scrambled after him, calling his name over and over again. But he didn’t listen to me.   
It was as if he knew who the perpetrator had been – he ripped open the door to room number 11 and stared for a few seconds. When I reached his side huffing and puffing (my feet were far too short for this kind of shit, dammit), I could also see inside the room. In it was a boy who desperately tried to hide half of my cake, while it seemed like the other half was smeared all over his lower face and hand. I recognized him as one who had bullied Tom before.   
Tom slowly entered the room and I quickly followed, now really worried. The look in his eyes was vacant, but still glittered with fury and a thirst for vengeance.   
Shit.  
He had lost the iron control he had on himself and his emotion.   
When the first things started flying around, I quickly closed the door behind us.   
Shit, shit, shit!  
The stuff lying around started whipping around, attacking the boy who squeaked first, but those sounds quickly changed to horrified screams and moans of pain.   
Shiiiiiit!  
“Tom? Tom!!!”  
He didn’t react. Dammit! If I didn’t do something quickly, he would kill that boy!   
So, I needed a plan. The things flying around shattered on the walls, only to attack in shard-form. But they didn’t touch either me or Tom. So, he at least must have had some semblance of awareness.   
That was good.   
Taking a fortifying breath I did the only thing I could in that situation: I launched myself at my chosen brother, hugged him tightly and kept repeating, screaming against the noise in the room: “No, Tom! Calm down! He’s not worth it! I can’t lose you too!”  
The last sentence seemed to reach something inside of him and the winds calmed down abruptly. Everything fell to the floor in a crash.   
Tom blinked a few times before looking at the boy and picking up the remaining half of the cake that miraculously had survived the commotion. “Don’t EVER steal from us again, you imbecile!”  
With that he turned around, me still clutching whatever I could reach and him holding me to him, and hurried us back to our room. Once there he closed the door and barricaded it with an impressive bout of wandless magic, before stumbling to his mattress.   
He had never let go of me or the cake though. He managed to put it down without incident; only then did he collapse. With me still in his grasp.  
He was shaking uncontrollably and his breath came in fast puffs. Was he… hyperventilating?!  
I tried to get up to help him somehow, get him some water, calm him down, but his arms around me were like bands of solid steel.  
“You’re mine”, he wheezed, sounding like he wasn’t himself anymore. “Mine! I won’t let you go, you’re mine!”   
…  
Yeah, that wasn’t creepy at all.   
“I won’t allow you to leave me”, he continued while burying his face in my hair.   
I had trouble understanding his words after that, but I think he said “I won’t allow you to leave, you’ll stay with me, you’re mine, mine, mine, mine…”  
…  
Yeah.  
After my two relationships had failed spectacularly I had made it a point to stay away from anyone who displayed even the slightest signs of possessiveness. And now… this.   
Although… I could understand him. He had no one but me, everyone else hated him, feared him, called him a monster, stole his food and his things, bullied him… Since he obviously didn’t remember his mother (and I don’t think I even have to mention his father), and he had no friends… I was the only one he could hold on to. And… hey, wasn’t he also the only one I could hold on to? Now that I thought about it, we only had each other. And since I didn’t know of anyone else alive at the moment (some Hogwarts teachers excluded), he would probably stay the centre of my world here. 

I could feel the dampness of his tears on my throat.

…

Oh, fuck it. 

I slung my arms around him.   
“You’re mine too, Tom. I won’t let you go either, you’re mine, you’ll stay with me. If you try to leave me, I will hurt you! Bad!”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow it's always Tuesday. Maybe I should make Tuesday my regular update-day...  
> Anyway, since I don't have that many chapters anymore, I'll slow down with posting. I'll still post every week, but I'll post here one week and a chapter for Granger Chronicles the other.   
> Anyway, have fun. :)

The thief who had stolen my cake had tried to get Tom punished, but I put up a tear-filled act of him being so ungrateful, that we had shared my birthday cake with him and now he was accusing Tom of wrecking his room?! That Tom had been with me the whole day, had made sure I had a wonderful birthday…  
In the end, he was the one sent to solitary confinement and Tom and I had shared the rest of the cake.   
Did I feel guilty?   
Well… maybe a little bit. Not much though. It weirded me out quite a bit, but I had realized that day how much Tom had come to mean to me. Far more than my new parents had in the two years I had spent with them.

Well, shit.   
I was well on the way of becoming the sister-version of Bellatrix Lestrange.

 

I sighed and rolled my eyes while Tom couldn’t see it before I started petting the arm that lay over my chest. Where first he had slept like he expected an attack every second and was prepared to throw me into the line of fire (and yes, his sleeping position really told me that), he might still be sleeping like he expected an attack, but he now curled around me or pushed me between himself and the wall as if he wanted to make sure everyone had to go through him first to get to me.   
That, I found strangely endearing.   
I hadn’t spent even one night on my too small mattress since the day I had turned three, Tom wouldn’t let me. I didn’t really mind, it was far warmer if one could share body heat, but I’d had to say goodbye to personal space and privacy.   
Seriously.   
Whenever he wasn’t in school, he hovered over me like an overprotective mother-hen. He watched me when I got up (I could stumble and fall), he watched me when I took my clothes out of the wardrobe (the rickety old thing could crash and bury me under it), he would have watched me putting on my clothes if I hadn’t thrown something at his head the first time he tried (after all, I could get caught in them and fall or strangle myself), he watched me when I was eating (I could choke on something), when I was playing, he was always around and only allowed me to play with him or by myself while he watched (I could stab myself with something and bleed out or whatever), when I went to the bathroom he stood in front of it, anxiously waiting for me to finish and only relaxing when I was by his side again, like he feared I would drown in the toilet or something… 

Jeesh, the guy had issues…

How was he going to cope when he had to go to Hogwarts?!  
That was going to be fun…

I sighed and continued petting him. He liked it when I did that. He had been so deprived of human touch that he had flinched away the first few weeks whenever I came close, but now that he had gotten used to it, he craved it with a single-minded focus. He always touched me somehow, holding my hand, hugging me, stroking my hair, making me sit on his lap to eat… But he always loved it most when I reacted to his touches by hugging him back, grabbing his hand tighter, cuddling into him or (even better) touching him of my own volition.   
So, I gave him all I could. And that was… a lot. Since he was the only one here I could cuddle with, I have to admit I was imitating a devil’s snare at times.   
The other boys in the orphanage teased him mercilessly about it, whenever they found the courage (which wasn’t very often, mind you, Tom and I retaliated brutally every time and they were therefore quite afraid of us), but that didn’t deter him.   
The whole orphanage had started calling me Em Riddle too. From the beginning I had stated quite forcefully that my name was Emma Unukalhai Derringer and not Emily, so that’s what they put in my file. That’s how easy you got rid of your first name in an orphanage in the thirties.   
As I grew older, I also wanted them to change my official last name to Riddle, but they refused, unfortunately. When all mentions of my last name suddenly magically changed to Riddle though, they didn’t comment on it, just looked at each other fearfully and went out of their ways to keep away from Tom and me. I could have kissed Tom for this, though he claimed it hadn’t been him.   
Yeah, right. This case had his fingerprints all over it. 

That had happened shortly after I had turned four.   
It took me a few days of running around like a satisfied cat to realize that Tom was looking at me strangely. A week after these strange happenings he sat me down on the bed opposite him.   
“You are like me”, he stated quietly. Frowning, I cocked my head. I had no idea what he was talking about.   
Then he put a piece of wood in front of me.  
“Look at it”, he said, ”focus on it.”

What was going on?

“Look at it and wish, with all your heart, for it to fly.”

…

Oh.  
He somehow had realized I had magic too.   
…  
When had that happened?!  
But okay. No thinking about my slip-up. And since he had quite good control over his accidental magic, maybe he would be able to teach me how to use mine too. So, I looked at the wood. I concentrated really hard, tried to let everything else fade out of my focus. There was only that little piece of wood for me, nothing else. Just this piece of wood.   
Before my inner eye I saw it moving, just a little bit, before leaving the ground for a millimetre, and then, millimetre for millimetre climbing upwards.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen in reality. 

I huffed, but concentrated harder.   
I knew I had magic, I had thrown my mother’s murderer off me when I had been barely two years old. I knew there was something inside of me, I just had to connect with it, to bring it out into the open.   
Before my inner eye I saw it moving, just a little bit, before leaving the ground for a millimetre, and then, millimetre for millimetre climbing upwards…  
But the physical piece of wood didn’t move.

Stupid thing!!!

I growled and tried again.  
And again.  
And again.  
And…  
You’re probably getting the gist of it. 

Hours later my eyes had started watering from how hard I was concentrating on that stupid piece of dead tree. I now knew every single grove on it, every scratch, every fibre, could describe its exact shape and colour pattern from all angles… but it hadn’t moved at all when I hadn’t thrown it through the room in frustration.   
Tom though seemed to have infinite patience with me. For the next few weeks, whenever he came home from school and we had eaten what I had stolen from the kitchen, we sat down together and he started to guide me through my first exercises in magic.   
Nothing worked though.  
After seven weeks of fruitlessly trying to get that stupid, idiotic, HATED piece of wood to fly, Tom changed his tactics: “Let us try something else. For me, the first few times required a really strong feeling like fear, anger or hate. Maybe we should try that.”  
Yeah, right. As if I could purposefully make myself scared or angry or whatever.   
Tom sat down behind me, grabbed my hands and wrapped something around them, before doing the same to my ankles, until I couldn’t move them anymore.   
What exactly was that all about? Was he trying to make me scared of being helpless or what?  
“Listen to me, Em, you need to trust me. I would never purposefully hurt you, you know that, right?”  
…  
Wait… what? 

Hands came around my throat and I sat up straighter.   
What in all heavens…?!  
I flinched away from his touch for the first time ever. His bigger body, legs and arms caged me so I couldn’t flee, and the hands around my throat tightened. 

My air supply was cut off.   
My throat was only able to produce a small squeak, before my speech-apparatus was shut down.  
No air in… no air out.   
Was he finally trying to kill me…?  
Frantically I tried fighting against the bonds I had trustingly let him put me into, but they held tight.  
Panic rose. My heart fluttered in my chest, desperately trying to bring more oxygen into my body, but with no new supply I knew it was fruitless. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead and black dots dancing on the inside of my eyelids.   
He was killing me! That was how I was to die…?!  
I didn’t want to die again!  
Then I heard a calm voice in my ear: “Make it fly. Just make it fly and all will be over. Make it fly and I will let you breathe again.”  
It? IT??? I ripped open my eyes, realizing that they had closed on their own accord, and my eyes immediately focused on the piece of wood lying in front of me innocently, just out of reach.   
Fly, I thought, FLY!!!

My body started convulsing and I thought I heard a loud crack, before suddenly cool, precious air reached my lungs.  
Hyperventilating I gasped for it, trying to get as much oxygen into me as I could.   
A warm hand touched my head and I flinched away, couldn’t move as far as I would have liked, though. I was still bound.   
Tears streamed out of my eyes and embarrassing little whimpers came through the coughs.   
“Shhh”, I heard, when the hand came onto my head again and picked up a soothing rhythm stroking me. “It’s over. It’s over, see?”  
With that Tom loosened my bonds, but I felt too sluggish to move, too afraid I would pass out at any moment.   
He pulled me onto his lap again, cradled me like a baby and whispered sweet nothings into my ear, while I grabbed at his shirt and cried.   
Shit.  
I hated not being able to move, not being able to breathe. There was a reason I avoided small, stuffy places. I had always had claustrophobia and not being able to move AND not being able to breathe was my absolute worst nightmare.   
I hadn’t cried like that since I had lost control of myself after I had killed my mother’s murderer. 

It took me a while to calm down again.  
When I had control of my emotions again, I immediately shoved Tom away, but he didn’t let me. He held onto me with arms that resembled steel bands. When the hell had the ten-year-old developed such strength?!  
“Calm down, little one, calm down…”, he murmured softly and nuzzled my hair before turning me around forcefully and pointing to the ceiling. “Look.”

I looked.   
And there, over my head, was the piece of wood, wedged deeply into the concrete of our room’s ceiling, so deep we probably would have to pry it out manually.   
My mouth fell open.  
“You did it, Em, you did it!”  
With that he hugged me fiercely and all resentment I had felt towards him for what he had put me through fell away.   
I had done it. I had managed to free the magic inside of me.   
A slow grin spread over my face. “We’re both different. We’re the same”, I said and he nodded. “Now you’ll never leave me. We have to stick together, you hear me? The others won’t understand. They will hurt you. I’m the only one who understands. You see that, don’t you? I know best. You need to listen to what I say, yes? I always know best…”

Whatever you say, Tommy-boy, whatever you say…


	9. Chapter 9

Time flew by.   
I trained my magic, tirelessly, led by Tom, who quite obviously had done a great job at teaching himself. And wow, was that guy a good teacher! Honestly, by this point, I thought Dumbledore the biggest idiot alive not to let him teach Defence Against the Dark Arts.   
But I had always thought the old coot mentally challenged anyway. 

With the help of my magic I now managed to steal enough food from the kitchen to actually fill our stomachs completely for once. I had also managed to let it help me with the cleaning I now had to do that I was old enough, while the older children were at school.   
All through the next year though, when Tom turned eleven, There was that nagging feeling of dread nestled somewhere in my abdomen.   
Tom had no idea why I was suddenly getting even clingier than before, but he didn’t know what I did.   
I knew he was going to leave come September. He was going to leave me alone until July the following year. That meant I would be alone for ten whole months. Ten whole months every year until I myself turned eleven.   
Whenever I thought about that fact, I felt like puking.   
What the hell was wrong with me?! I was over thirty years old now, had lived on my own for quite a while before dying and had liked it! WHY exactly did it feel so devastating to lose this one person for a few months?!  
Was my new age affecting me?   
Was it just that I was now used to him being around me 24/7?   
Or… did I really depend on him that much? I was only four and a half years old, and Tom was the only one who ever took me seriously. 

And then it came.   
A month after my fifth birthday, on a Sunday, the third of July 1938, the matron knocked at our door and told us that Tom had a visitor. He went to the meeting room, with me tagging behind, of course.   
The matron left us alone. I was pretty sure that went against protocol, but the old coot had never been one to play by the rules.   
Tom placed me slightly behind himself, so that I could see what was happening, but he stood between the old man and myself. Always the protector, my big brother.   
Dumbledore looked unexpectedly muggle in his dark slacks and dress-shirt, and weirdly young. His hair and beard were long, but they were of a light auburn colour. His eyes were of a clear, light blue and glittering in the weak light of the naked light bulb. The signature half-moon glasses were absent though.   
“Good morning, Tom”, he said and smiled a grandfatherly smile. I immediately bristled. The voice sounded… too friendly. Too guileless and carefree. “Good morning, Sir”, Tom answered carefully and they shook hands.   
“And who might that be?”, he asked, while looking me over.   
“My sister”, was Tom’s only answer, “wherever I go, she goes.”  
Dumbledore frowned in puzzlement, his eyes jumping from my dark features to Tom’s pale face, but Tom didn’t elaborate and the future Director didn’t ask for him to clarify.  
“I was hoping to be able to speak to you alone…”, he hinted, but Tom didn’t react, and neither did I. So, the future Director just sighed.   
“I am a teacher at a special school. It’s…”, his eyes flitted to me, “a school for children with special abilities. I would like to offer you a spot there starting September.”  
“I can’t pay tuition”, Tom answered evenly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.   
“We are offering scholarships for special cases. I would be happy to tell you the specifics, but I’m afraid I need to speak to you alone for this.”  
A muscle in Tom’s cheek twitched. He didn’t like being ordered around, and he liked people ordering ME around even less. He was the only one allowed to do that, in his opinion.   
“I’ll go outside to the swing for a while”, I said, laying my hand on his arm for a second and looking at him meaningfully. He knew I wouldn’t go there without him, so he expected me to listen in on his conversation somehow.   
I knew they would end up in our room sooner or later, so I left without a backwards glance and hid in the wardrobe in our room.   
Expectantly I waited for quite some time.   
Finally the door opened and two sets of steps became audible. According to the sounds, Tom manoeuvred Dumbledore to the only chair in the room while probably taking a seat on his mattress.  
Then it was quiet for a few seconds. Finally, Dumbledore started talking again: “I know you have special abilities, Tom. Hogwarts was founded for people with abilities like yours; you learn to shape them there, to control them.”  
“What… special abilities are you talking about?”, Tom didn’t really sound like he would make it easy for the old man and I cheered to that. Stupid old coot.   
“Have you ever… made something happen when you were angry or scared? Something you wanted very, very much?”  
I could tell Tom had to control himself so as not to attack. But he had an iron control on his emotions when he wasn’t around me. He wouldn’t let Dumbledore know. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
Dumbledore was quiet for a few seconds.   
“I am the same. I can make things happen too.”  
Now it was on Tom to be quiet for a bit. Then: “Prove it.”  
A picture flashed through my mind. A burning… wardrobe.   
Shit!!!  
Just a moment later heat engulfed me. Fuck!!! Panicking I tried to calm my thoughts and think logically. I couldn’t let the old coot know I was there. Dumbledore would obliviate me. The fire would only last for a few seconds anyway, I could make it through.   
Smoke filled the small space and I hid my face between my knees.  
Calm down. Calm down. Don’t cough. The fire isn’t hot. It’s not burning you. You’re sitting in a cool bubble where the fire can’t hurt you…  
Soothing cold spread over the skin on my legs that was already turning slightly red, and suddenly, the smoke around me cleared. I looked up, expecting the fire to be gone, but it was still burning. The bottom of my shirt had caught fire, but it was easy for me to extinguish it now, that I didn’t have trouble breathing and wasn’t burning alive. Thank the gods for my magic, and another thank you to Tom, who had so relentlessly trained me to have easy access to my magical core. 

Now, I could continue listening to what was happening outside.   
“What you are burning there are the only possessions we have”, Tom might have sounded calm to everyone else’s ears, but I could detect the strain in his voice. I knew what he thought… That Dumbledore must never have known hardship for him to so casually destroy something belonging to another.   
The fire dissipated and I looked at the partly burnt clothes and charred stuffed camel with a heavy heart.   
A second later, they were repaired again.  
I wasn’t sure what I felt then. Thoughtlessly Dumbledore had destroyed and repaired the only possessions two orphans had, not caring how that would make them feel.   
My resentment only kept growing.

“The school is a place where people like us learn what they are able to do, how they can utilise magic to perform feats far greater than any muggle would ever be able to understand…”  
…   
Wait, what?!   
“Muggles?”  
While Dumbledore explained the term to Tom, my thoughts were reeling. I had thought Dumbledore was a muggle-lover! But it sounded like he looked down on them, like he thought of himself as far above them.   
What the hell?!  
…  
On the other hand, he HAD agreed with Grindelwald just a few decades before…

“Your tuition will be paid in full, your school supplies will be second hand, but they will be of good quality regardless.”  
Dumbledore seemed to wait for a reaction, but Tom didn’t give in. He just waited.   
“I need to remind you though that you need to maintain an “E” average, which is comparable to a “B” in muggle-school, so as not to lose your scholarship. You seem to be a very bright young man though.”  
Was it just me or did that sound… creepy? Like… the bad kind of creepy?   
I would make it a point to warn Tom never to be alone with his future teacher. My inner warning bells were ringing incessantly and I had learned early in life that they might not ring as often as I would have liked, but when they did, I really should listen. 

“I will provide you with the paperwork detailing your scholarship for a boarding school in Wales. No one can know about magic and therefore Hogwarts, so you need to keep the truth hidden.”  
I could have sworn I could HEAR Tom’s frown.  
“Here is your acceptance letter to Hogwarts and a list of school supplies. Most of them you will be able to take out of the school fundus and supply cabinets, but we need to get you the right size of robes and a new wand, so we still have to go shopping. I will come and pick you up on Saturday, if that is agreeable to you.”  
I would not let him take Tom to Diagon Alley without me. No way, no how.   
“I will only tell my sister. She needs to know”, Tom said calmly, his tone of voice leaving no place for arguments. “And I have to discuss things with her first. I can’t just leave her here on her own.”  
“Oh, she’ll be fine, she is in good hands here, don’t worry. It’s yourself you need to think about now. She’ll understand.”

It showed how much he knew about orphanages.   
No, I would definitely NOT be fine. Well, I would, of course, but any another five-year-old probably wouldn’t.  
Gods, I hated that idiot’s guts already. 

Tom just repeated though: “I have to talk things through with her first. I will have an answer for you on Saturday.”  
Dumbledore now realized that this was Tom’s way of saying that he wasn’t even sure he would take the offer at all and the silence was heavy with surprise.   
He then cleared his throat. “Well then. But you really need to think about your own future here. An opportunity like this won’t present itself twice. And do keep in mind… if you’re not trained… I will have to seal your magic completely. So be aware of the consequences of your decisions…”  
Had he… had he just THREATENED Tom?!   
What the hell?!  
Wasn’t Dumbledore supposed to be this grandfatherly figure, always talking about friendship and love and acceptance...?  
I just couldn’t believe my ears!

They said their goodbyes and the door closed.   
A hollow “thunk” sounded and Tom snarled something under his breath.   
“You in here, Em?”, he then asked and I slowly opened the wardrobe. The expression on his face struck me speechless. The second he realized where I had been hiding, all the blood left his face and he stumbled, a look of panic in his eyes. Then something seemed to jerk him out of his shock.   
I had never seen him move that fast. One moment he was on the other side of the room, the next he was directly in front of me, frantically checking me over for injuries, while scared to touch me, afraid he would hurt me even more.   
Having enough of that I launched myself at him and held him tightly. “I’m fine, Tom. I’m fine.”  
He still hurried over to our bed, looked at my arms, shoved my skirt up to look at my legs, checked my face, my neck, even my hair.   
“I’m really fine, Tom, my magic kept me safe.”   
He hesitated for a second, before his arms came around me in a bone-crushing hug, his face buried in my hair, breathing deeply, trying to get himself under control again.   
“You’re fine. You’re not hurt. You’re fine…”, he mumbled, trying to reassure himself, probably. His hug hurt, his strength had been growing even more the last few months as he now had enough nutrition to meet his body’s demands, but I didn’t complain.   
He needed the reassurance now that I was okay.

“I can’t leave you here”, he mumbled and I blinked in surprise. “I just can’t…”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit, I completely forgot I was writing fanfictions O.o  
> How in the seven hells did THAT happen?!  
> So... very much past the date I wanted to post this... New chapter.  
> (*hiding in corner*)

It had taken me several days to get Tom to see reason.   
Giving up his magic?! Not a chance in hell.  
So come Saturday the two of us stood waiting. I had decided I would be tagging along, no way was I going to let Tom be alone with that creep. So when Dumbledore appeared and realized we would both be coming, I thought I saw a spark of annoyance in his eyes.   
That dude got creepier every day. 

Instead of side-along apparition Dumbledore called a cab-for-hire and drove us to a dingy part of London. It was a good idea actually, we would never have been able to find the Leaky Cauldron again otherwise. I saw the pub immediately and hid behind Tom when we went inside, fingers holding tight onto his dress-shirt.   
Dumbledore opened the brick door behind the pub and smiled one of his decidedly fake smiles. “Welcome to Diagon Alley, London’s best wizarding shopping street.”  
Best? Did that mean there were more? Or did he mean Knockturn Alley?   
“Let’s visit Malkin’s first.”  
We followed him into the little shop and then into the back. Madam Malkin’s was led by… well… a Mr. Malkin in this time.   
It was a bit weird.  
In the back were Hogwarts uniforms in all sizes, some looked better, some worse, but Tom had no problem finding three uniforms only slightly bigger than they should have been, and that had a resizing spell on them to let them grow two additional sizes with the owner. He also got shoes and gloves there.   
Next was Ollivander’s.   
With a comment about still having some things to accomplish while here and expecting the finding of a wand to take quite a while, Dumbledore left us to our own devices, so we entered the shop on our own.  
Mr. Ollivander looked younger by far than what I was used to through books and movies, but he had already attained his creepiness.   
The good kind, though.   
“Aaah, I think I have made your mother’s wand, did I not…?”, he asked after he had gotten one single look at Tom. My brows rose. I had thought Merope Gaunt had been an ugly hag courtesy of inbreeding and that Tom had gotten his good looks from his father’s side of the family…   
“Yes, I think I did… The shape of the eyes and the colour beneath, yes, yes, you must be the son of Merope Gaunt, are you not?”  
Tom stared at the man. “That… was my mother’s name, yes. I am Tom Riddle, though.”  
Oh. So THAT was how Tom had realized he was a halfblood. Interesting.   
“And who might you be…?”, the silver-eyed man asked while fixating on me. “I’m Emma. Emma Riddle.”  
“Oh, really?”, he commented, his head cocked to the side, “Any relation to Sa’id Mahab Al’Zarii? You do look like him, Miss Riddle…”  
I blinked. I had never heard that particular name before, but my mother’s maiden-name had been Al’Zarii. “Maybe he’s related to my mother, Unukalhai Ephret Al’Zarii…”  
Tom and I shared a look. So Tom knew now that we were both halfbloods (or suspected it, at least, in my case). I had known before, of course, but it was still news to Tom.   
Mr. Olivander hummed under his breath while looking Tom over, grabbing his right hand and then sending a measuring tape into the air to do its job. He then nodded and started piling boxes on the table.   
The next hour flew past with Tom trying wand after wand and nearly destroying the whole shop, while I just stood by and snickered.   
Finally, FINALLY he found it; a yew wand, 13 ½ inches long, with a core of phoenix feather.  
Jeesh. He had really taken his time.  
Dumbledore wasn’t back yet though, so we sat down to wait, for he was the one paying, and watched two of Tom’s future classmates finding their wands quite a bit faster than he had.   
I could see him watching the two intently. One, a nervous, twittering wreck, the other confident and slightly arrogant. Especially the second one seemed to capture Tom’s attention and he sat up straighter, mimicking the posture. I in turn watched him and mirrored him. If HE was going to be emulating a pureblood, then I as his sister would have to do so too.   
An approving smile played around the corner of his lips as he noticed. 

I was still weirded out by my incomprehensible wish for his approval. I was three times his age. He should be looking for MY approval, dammit. But still, somehow I felt really warm and comfortable in the role of his little sister.   
I had always wanted a big brother, but had just had a big sister, who only saw me as an annoyance. It was different with Tom. He… he got me. And I got him. We were friends and family both and knew we could depend on each other. And we always had each other’s backs. So if Tom decided he would adopt pureblood mannerisms, then that automatically extended to me.   
Finally Dumbledore came back and payed for Tom’s wand. He seemed… disgruntled somehow. Whatever he had been doing, it didn’t seem like it had gone his way.   
On the way back to the Leaky Cauldron he seemed to make an effort to look cheerful again. So when my eyes immediately got drawn to Flourish & Blott’s, he smiled a grandfatherly smile and ushered us inside. “You know, as a welcome gift to the wizarding world, I will allow each of you one book.”  
Then he seemed to hesitate as he looked at me. “You… are able to read already, I assume?”  
I had to suppress a snort and a glare, but only nodded. “Then I would advise books on history. Spell books would be wasted on you, I’m afraid.”  
Gah!  
I didn’t like the old coot. Just when I thought he wasn’t THAT bad, he threw out something like that. 

Tom and I both didn’t like handouts, but we decided with one look that we would grasp whatever chance we could to further our education. And if that meant accepting books from this man, then so be it.   
It’s not like we would feel indebted to him or anything.   
So, we browsed.   
I thought it best to get “Hogwarts. A History”, but there were so many other books I would love to bury my nose in! Tom had found a book about wizarding traditions which also included the family trees of the most prominent pureblood families, and smiled. So that would be it, then. I myself couldn’t decide, so I grabbed brother dearest and made him help me. Unfortunately he also thought “Hogwarts. A History” would be a good idea, so I took the huge book to the counter. It was extremely heavy and nearly bigger than myself, so I was glad when Tom took it from me to carry it. Dumbledore payed for the books and brought us back to the orphanage afterwards. There he also put down a bundle and enlarged it, revealing Tom’s schoolbooks, scale, telescope, cauldron and many more supplies he would need in school, all obviously second hand at the very least, if not fourth or fifth. 

The old wizard couldn’t leave fast enough for us, and as soon as he was gone, we crowded around our new books. Well… Tom’s new books. But his possessions were mine too. And mine his. We were more of the… “ours” mind set.  
I immediately started poring over the two history books. History of the Wizarding World was something I had always wanted to study. Tom snorted and picked up Charms. 

The next weeks were spent more or less with our noses in the books.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since I won't have time tomorrow to post (and am still feeling guilty about that month without posting) here is the new chapter. On a Sunday.

Tom was definitely a natural. Every spell he tried worked on the first try.   
Such a show-off.   
Maybe HE was the Slyther-Sue.   
…  
Slyther-Stu…?  
Anyway, I was a bit peeved about the ease with which he seemed to fly through the different classes. The ones he could try by himself, at least. Charms and Transfigurations didn’t faze him at all. Defence Against the Dark Arts was even worse. He breezed through that. The other Classes were more theory-based or – like potions – couldn’t be practiced in a muggle orphanage.   
Sometimes I really disliked the guy, he was probably going to be renowned as a prodigy or something.   
SO mean.  
And what about us ordinary folk? We would be left in the dust, unnoticed.   
I might have been a bit resentful then, but every time he managed a new spell, a wave of joy rushed through me – until I realized that everyone else would always be in his shadow.   
Meeh.  
For me, that obviously meant learning, learning and learning, and practice, practice and some more practice. I would not let him beat me. I was over twenty years his senior, after all! Not a chance would I let him overtake me!  
So, when the books on the theoretical subjects had found their way into his hands, I laid claim to the others.   
Concentrating like mad I started learning the incantations and wand movements, even though I had to do it with a simple stick. I would be able to cast those spells on the first try too, as soon as I had my wand, even if I got a sore wrist and hoarse throat in the meantime.   
Conveniently forgetting that I still had six years to go, I copied spells and movements into a notebook I had gotten for my birthday, so I would be able to learn even with Tom and the books gone. 

“Hogwarts. A History” was amazing. It detailed every aspect of Hogwarts and I decided I would give it to Tom so he could learn about his ancestor, as soon as he found out he was related to the founder. 

But what would I do while he was gone? 

My thoughts wheeled around in my head, going from proud to jealous to nervous to… sad.   
I realized that I really, REALLY didn’t want him to leave. He was my new brother, my best friend. And he left to the one place I had always wanted to go.   
Oh well. I needed to stay strong. Just six more years and I would be going to Hogwarts too. I just needed to sit it out. 

So, September came around. Tom had already packed the three days before, with me smuggling my stuffed camel and “Hogwarts. A History” inside his trunk for him, so we only needed to get to king’s cross. And of course I took him there, we both didn’t really care what the matrons said, even though Tom was quite concerned about me returning to the orphanage on my own, but I had managed to get my way.   
So, we dressed our best (not that this really was good, but better than our usual clothes) and started the long trek to the train station.   
It took us two and a half hours to get there, but since we had started out at five in the morning, we had ample time.   
When we stood between the two platforms nine and ten, Tom sent me a look and I grabbed his hand. Dumbledore had told Tom how to reach the platform, but the wall really did look very… solid. I swallowed, before I followed him obediently to the big wall of… brick and acted like we were leaning against it.  
Before we knew it, we stood in front of the train and an eerily empty platform. It seemed like we were the only ones who liked to be early. It took a while for me to realize that Tom was staring at the train. I hadn’t felt the need to, it looked exactly like in the movies and also very much like the train I had taken from Fort William to Mallaig quite a few years ago. But to him it must look majestic, all black iron and gleaming red and golden accents and huffing and puffing…   
As orphans we weren’t used to seeing trains like these very often, especially not one that looked that… clean, even though it was running and puffing smoke up in the air every few minutes.   
Now that I really thought about it… why was the train in Gryffindor colours? Wasn’t that a bit… too on-the-nose?  
Still, I pulled on Tom’s hand and led the gaping boy to the gleaming black and red doors of the train, where I helped him with his trunk.  
…  
Okay, I mostly stood in the way while he managed to shove it up the steps, but still. It’s the thought that counts.   
Afterwards, we stood on the platform, quietly staring at the train, while I had buried my fingers deeply in Tom’s sleeve. I had done so unconsciously, but when I had realized it… I just hadn’t cared. 

“You will write me, yes?”, I asked, internally berating myself for how timid my voice sounded. He looked down at me and came down onto his knees, grabbing my shoulders.   
“Of course I’ll write”, he said, sounding so convinced that something inside of me unclenched. “I’ll write every week. But you must promise to write me too.”  
I nodded, blinking away tears that tried to steal themselves into my eyes. “I’ll write too. Every week.”  
He then grabbed a hold of me and pulled me into a fierce hug.   
A long fierce hug.  
…  
A VERY long fierce hug. 

When he finally let go of me, he stared at me intently. “While I am gone, you will stay away from the other children. Don’t trust anyone, they will only try to use you. Understand?”  
I nodded dutifully. They were all scared of me anyway.   
“Don’t ever share food with one of the others, they will rat you out if you do.”  
Again I nodded.  
“Keep on training your magic. Never get lazy with it, you need to be able to control it to perfection when I come back.”  
I sent him a dubious look but nodded anyways. Why did I feel as if my mother went away for a while…?  
“And you will soon start school. I expect you to bring back perfect scores. Always.”  
And again my head went up and down. Jeesh. As if that would be a problem…   
“And you are not allowed to hurt yourself. No tripping, no falling, no ripping your skin anywhere.”  
Now I stared at him incredulously, with my left eyebrow raised.   
He grumbled something I couldn’t understand and hugged me again.   
“Just… look after yourself. Trust no one. And please, PLEASE be careful!”  
Oh man. I had looked after myself for years before I had been reborn in this kid’s body. It’s not like I was helpless.   
But still, I liked hearing that he worried. Not that I didn’t.

Sighing Tom got up again after hugging me some more. “Don’t worry about me”, he said in answer to my facial expression, “I will be fine. I’ll be the best student they ever had, I will RULE this place. Just watch me.”  
I smiled. He would, too. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”   
Something plopped and Tom and I immediately changed our posture and demeanour, as if we had practiced it. That was it for the tender goodbye. Now we were playing well-bred purebloods for everyone else.   
A family of black-haired children and father and a brunette mother had appeared, looking haughty and disapproving at our clothing, before ignoring us and ushering the three boys into the train and disapparating afterwards.   
Tom looked down at me and I nodded with a heavy heart.   
It wouldn’t do for me to wait here until the train left.   
“I expect to hear from you soon, brother”, I said calmly, while a mother brought her daughter through the brick wall. He nodded equally as calm and smiled only with one corner of his lips. “I expect immediate answers.” Now it was my turn to nod before I forced myself to turn away and retrace our steps back to the orphanage.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an explanation. Really, I do!  
> I actually thought I had already posted this chapter, when I actually had only sent it to... uhm... not exactly my beta... Cathy, what are you? A greedy friend, who needs to be entertained while waiting for a new group at work? :P  
> Anyway, I... forgot. >_<  
> I'm sorry. >_<
> 
> (Oh, and I actually found out how to do italic, now. YAY!!!)

_Hogwarts, September 9th 1938_

_Dear Emma,_

_So it’s Friday now and I have so much to tell you. You won’t believe what is going on here!  
Hogwarts is a really weird place to be studying at. It’s an old, medieval castle, kind of drafty in the corridors, but nice and warm in the common room. Far warmer than our room. _

_I have been sorted into the house of Slytherin. Thankfully.  
I would have been fine with Ravenclaw, apparently they are the studious ones. I think I would have fit in there too. I can only thank Merlin, as they say, that I haven’t landed in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Gryffindors are the courageous ones, as “Hogwarts. A History” tells it, but they only seem like overblown buffoons to me. Hufflepuffs are very timid and not very bright, it seems, so I’m really glad about landing in the house of resourcefulness and determination.   
What the book doesn’t tell you though, is how the new students are sorted into the different houses. They actually use a speaking hat that can look into your thoughts.   
I’m not particularly comfortable with the fact that people can look into my head and read all of my thoughts. I really need to look into this. There must be some way to block this invasion. _

_Slytherin is also the house of purity, though. All of the other students are purebloods and have grown up with wizarding traditions. I have decided to observe their conduct first and act accordingly. I don’t think anyone suspects me of being a halfblood yet, though they did seem to find my name peculiar. Apparently purebloods know the names of all other purebloods listed in some kind of directory._

_I will carve out my place here though. They won’t be able to put me down, it’s my chance to make a new name for myself. And you, of course, for you will be following in my footsteps as soon as you’re old enough._

_Our Head of House is our Potions teacher, Horace Slughorn. We already had him in class. He is a bit suspicious, but his subject is amazing! I don’t have any problems in it, am actually one of the best. I will be at the top soon though, just like I am in the other subjects.  
The others are jealous of my talent, but they will come around soon enough. I will have those purebloods eating out of my hand in no time. _

_I like Defence against the Dark Arts best, though. It is amazing how many creatures are out there and what spells can be used against them or against other wizards.  
Charms seems really practical. I’m going to show you some tricks you will be able to do without a wand with some practice.   
What I absolutely don’t like is Transfiguration. I am good at it, obviously, but the one teaching it is Professor Dumbledore. He looks at me weirdly and seems to wait for me to do something he can use to give me detention with him.   
Naturally, I’m trying to avoid that. _

_What have you been up to?  
How was your first week at school?  
Are you doing what I told you to do?   
You haven’t gotten into any trouble, I hope? But if you have – I expect you to have emerged victorious. If anyone is treating you badly, I will hurt them when I come back. They will learn to leave you alone. _

_I found the camel.  
You are mine, little one._

_Tom._

 

~~~

 

I had never known how sheltered Tom had kept me, how much his presence had protected me and had helped to keep the bullies at bay.   
It had started only days after his departure that the other children seemingly had decided to project their hatred of my adopted brother on me. They also weren’t scared I would retaliate; I was a scrawny five-year-old, after all. I had my food taken away (not that this fazed me at all, since I still stole from the kitchen), my shoes stolen (though I really liked walking barefoot and they hadn’t fit right anyway), knocked me into walls (which brought me a nice collection of colourful bruises), isolated me (I didn’t want to talk to any of them anyway though) and tried to frame me for… practically everything. 

I learned quickly to use my big, dark eyes and little-girl-charm on the matrons to deflect most of the latter, but I couldn’t do much about the corporeal attacks. Our room soon became my sanctuary. Even though Tom wasn’t there anymore, the other children were still too scared to go in there. 

When I wasn’t writing Tom, I spent most of my time studying, reading through my new (fifth-hand) school books (or at least leave through them, since they were more than just ridiculous) or getting out of the orphanage for a while and run around the nearby forest none of the other children frequented. There were stories about monsters and gangs and treacherous holes that discouraged them greatly. Add to that the orphanage’s policy of not letting children out much (since I didn’t ask for permission and wasn’t to be found most of the time anyway, so no one worried about me, I didn’t have that problem, at least) and the complete disinterest the children showed in anything nature-related, and I was in for a few hours of uninterrupted running, walking or thinking each week.   
The school was… even more boring than I thought it would be. My teachers were absolutely amazed by my knowledge and abilities and pushed me up four freaking classes at once. So… I was now in the last year of preschool with children nearly twice my age. 

Joy.

As you can imagine, that wasn’t much fun at all. They either treated me with contempt out of jealousy or they treated me like a toddler. I was far too young for them, that was true, but jeesh, they got on my nerves!

And to make matters worse, the priest that had been around the orphanage since the end of August now wanted to talk to every kid separately about sins, god, sins, duty, sins and whatnot.   
Oh, and sins.   
Mostly sins.  
At least that was what the other children told of their talks with him. 

Joy.

This rainy November evening it was my turn.   
I dreaded the talk. Contrary to almost everyone here I wasn’t religious in the least. If I had to name what I was, I’d probably call myself an educated agnostic. I had spent a few years researching different religions in my spare time, especially the most prominent ones, so I would be able to discuss these topics with people without having to rely on what they told me about it. This in turn now meant for me though that I would have to bite my tongue quite a bit when talking to the priest. My best bet probably was to play the naïve girl who knew nothing. 

I just needed to stick with the act. 

Steeling myself I knocked on the door.   
Silence.  
I frowned and knocked again.   
Just as I wanted to call it a night and leave, the door opened and revealed the priest.  
He was overweight, however he managed that in these years, and only had a crown of thin white hair around his head. He was also very pale and pudgy and his lips reminded me of a fish’s, especially wet with spittle when his tongue came out to moisten them. Like now.  
He smiled though, when he saw me, and I relaxed a bit. The smile transformed his face into one that reminded me of my grandfather in his younger years, and his tiny pale blue eyes nearly disappeared behind his lids and cheeks.   
“Come in, come in”, he said and ushered me into his room with a hand on my shoulder.   
Despite his resemblance to my grandfather I didn’t like to be touched in this familiar manner. I didn’t even let the matrons touch me that way.   
…  
Or rather, TOM didn’t let them touch me that way, and they had learned quickly to keep their hands to themselves, so I also wasn’t used to adults (or anyone but Tom, really) touching me. The priest hadn’t been here long enough to know this, though, so what the hell.  
“Sit down, Emma”, he said and motioned to a little stool that stood in front of his chair, perfect for my height, but as he sat down, I realized how he towered over me and that my head only slightly reached over his knees.   
Wonderful.   
He might have tried to be thoughtful there, but he had failed miserably. 

Oh well.  
He was new, he would learn.

“So, Emma…”, he started as he leaned back and folded his fingers over his bulging stomach, “I am Father Joseph, but you can call me father, if you want. Most people do. Has anyone told you what these talks are all about?”  
I opted for a wide-eyed innocent look.   
“Yes, father, they told me you wanted to talk about god and sin. What is a sin?”   
He chuckled. “A sin is when you have done something bad, like… take something that doesn’t belong to you or lie to a priest like me.”  
Aaand there we go. Setting himself up above everyone else.   
“I did take Dale’s apple once after he took my bread. Was that bad?”, I asked with wide eyes, and then purposefully stumbled over the next words while trying to get my cheeks to turn red: “And I once told the matron I bumped into someone holding a glass of water, when actually, I…”  
I stopped and looked down.   
He chuckled. Okay, every suspicion he might have had from reading my file and seeing which class I was in at school should be destroyed now.   
“Telling me about these things is the first thing to atone for your sins, my dear”, he said and leaned back again. “God tells us what a sin is, and us priests are the ones closest to god. So whenever you come to me, you tell me what you did, and I will tell you if it was good or bad, and what you have to do to make up for the bad things you have done, yes?”

Wait.  
What?  
Okaaay… Just go with it, just play along…

“Um… I think…?”, I mumbled and looked at him again, out of big, dark eyes that I knew no one could resist.   
“Good”, he said, smiling again in the way that reminded me of my grandfather, “we’ll come back to your confessions later, now I’d-…”  
He stopped when I timidly raised a hand, which made him chuckle again.  
“What is a confession?”, I asked innocently and cocked my head.  
“A confession is, when you tell me of the bad things you have done and accept whichever punishment I think is appropriate.”

…  
Okay, slowly this got a bit weird. He didn’t really say anything that I hadn’t expected, but… HE would tell me which of my actions were good and which bad? HE alone would decide on the punishment?  
Was he trying to raise a street gang that only listened to what he told them they should do to get into heaven or what?

Still, I let nothing show on my face and just nodded eagerly.   
“Good”, he continued, “I have been in the orphanage for a while now and I have noticed that you don’t talk to the other children. You are always alone. Why don’t they play with you, do you know?”  
Was that something a priest should be asking?  
…  
Well, probably, but still, I didn’t really want to talk about that.   
“They… don’t like me. I am years ahead of them in school and they don’t like it.”

He wouldn’t get an answer better than that. And it was true!   
…  
Well, partly at least. 

He nodded, thoughtfully. “Yes, I read that about you. You are a smart little girl, aren’t you?”  
Well, yes, but why are you looking proud like YOU should be credited for that?   
Jeesh.   
“You know, it’s probably better if you stay away from them anyway. They would only hold you back and pull you down.”

...

WHAT???

Should a priest be talking like that?!  
I think not! 

I had to fight hard to keep my facial features under control, but I managed.   
Barely. 

“But now to your confession. You still know, what that means?”  
I nodded and repeated what he had told me word for word, and he leant forward to tousle my hair. “Good girl!”, he said and beamed at me. “No wonder you skipped so many classes!”

Uhm…  
Yeah.  
Real impressive to be able to repeat something one had just been told two minutes earlier. 

“Hm, somehow this isn’t working with that stool. You are too far away from me, and far too low…”  
Nooo, REALLY?!   
“Come on, get up on my lap so we can talk more comfortably.”

…  
WHAT???  
This time I wasn’t able to control my face completely and a shocked blink escaped.   
But hey, that guy was a priest. Maybe it was customary to have children sit on your lap for their confessions in the thirties. After all, what the hell did I know?   
Okay, just play along, Nina, just play along.  
So, I crawled up onto his lap awkwardly, he didn’t help at all, just smiled down at me, with a smile that, while it had reminded me of my beloved grandfather before, seemed… off somehow now.   
…  
Or maybe that was just my imagination.  
Hell, I had no idea how confessions were done in an orphanage, much less in this time and age. I really shouldn’t jump to conclusions and give the guy the benefit of the doubt. 

Okay, so I sat on the priest’s lap now, his left arm bracing my back and his right one lying over my legs, not touching anything that wasn’t appropriate.   
Okay, maybe I was getting paranoid. And maybe I just disliked priests in general.   
…  
Nah, I was probably just paranoid and the poor guy was simply trying to be friendly. 

“So, you said you stole an apple from Dale? Tell me more about it.”  
So, I laid bare the whole imaginary story about a guy from the orphanage stealing my bread at dinner, about me still being hungry and about me taking the chance to steal his apple a while later.   
He shook his head. “Stealing is always wrong, Emma, even if he took your bread and you were still hungry. Jesus tells us we have to turn the other cheek. So if he takes your food, it is on him. It is HIS sin. No need for you to behave the same as him.”

Oh. Okay, just an ordinary priest then, babbling about turning the other cheek. Bah.

I looked at him, my eyes swimming in tears. “But… but I was hungry and if I hadn’t taken his apple, he would have continued to steal my food…”  
The priest cleared his throat and patted me on the head.   
“When someone else steals your food, don’t steal anything back. Just come to me, I’ll feed you.”

Wait.   
Was that normal?  
He couldn’t tell every kid in here to come to him if they were hungry.   
Or maybe he thought I was something special, being far smarter than the other children here…  
Yeah, that was probably it.   
Okay, thankful smile, wide, sparkling eyes… check.

“And now tell me about the time you lied to your matron. You told her you had bumped into someone carrying a glass of water, yes? But that hadn’t happened. So what has really happened?”

Okay, maybe that story hadn’t been such a good idea. It never had happened anyway, but I still didn’t want to tell the priest. Still, I would have to play along, unfortunately.   
So, I told him about hiding from some kid, terrified, about being too scared to move from my hiding spot and peeing my pants. About being so ashamed that I lied to the matron and washing out my underwear and skirt by hand in the bathroom.  
There.   
That sounded like a believable story for a five-year-old, didn’t it?

“Lying is really bad, Emma, you know that, right?”  
I nodded, forcing myself to look miserable and suitably contrite.  
“But sometimes one can’t help it, I know that. Just remember, if you lie to the matrons, it’s not really a good thing, but there are some things they don’t need to know. If something like that comes up, you come to me and tell me every detail, understand?”

…

Okay, what kind of priest was this guy?!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I'll just say I'll post every other week. No particular days. I never manage anyway ^^°

_Hogwarts, January 14th 1939_

_Dear Emma,_

_I am top of my class now in every single subject.  
Not that I had expected differently.   
Still, it rankles my classmates that someone like me, who isn’t from one of the prominent families, upstages them on every turn. I have to admit to a growing sense of pride, holding at least some kind of power over them.   
I am trying to get them to be indebted to me though, especially my fellow Slytherins, by helping them with their homework and teaching them things they don’t understand.  
Some of them are such thickheaded idiots, you wouldn’t believe it! But their families hold much political and financial power, so I have to play nice if I want to enter their circle.   
I have already found some who start to look up at me, mostly from minor families, but they aren’t my goal. I want those uppity purebloods to look at me with astonishment in their eyes, to see that I am better than every single one of them…_

_You understand, don’t you?  
The two of us, we will rule this school, as soon as you come here. I have already talked to Director Dippet about having you start one or two years earlier. He seems very reluctant, but I am sure I will accomplish it in time.   
And when you’re also here, no one will ever try anything against us anymore. We will rule the school, they will all bow to us! You and I, we will be legends, you’ll see!_

_Did you use my idea for Jates? Is he still giving you trouble?  
Once I’m back he will wish he had never been born.   
Are you still doing your exercises? How is your wandwork coming along? Were you able to repeat the focussed spell with the stick?   
I wish you were here with me, you would be my light in this swamp of ignorance. _

_We belong together, you and I.  
You belong to me, never forget that. Everyone else is just trash._

_Tom_

 

~~~ 

 

A few weeks and a birthday package to my favourite brother later the situation was still more or less the same. Every week I had to meet the priest. I was the only one in the whole orphanage, all the others would meet him again in half a year. I overheard a conversation of him explaining to a concerned matron why he wanted so see me so often. He had explained that he was concerned about me not having any friends and about wanting to foster my intellect and thirst for knowledge. 

Not that he was doing much fostering, really, he mostly wanted me to sit on his lap telling him what I had done that week, following with his own version of judging right from wrong.   
It was… weird, but he never did anything REALLY wrong and I wasn’t exactly an impressionable child upon which he could stamp his own sense of justice. I listened to what he had to say and kept doing what I wanted regardless. 

Better me than one of the other kids.

Still, something kept me from telling Tom about the new priest. Had I done so before Christmas, I was pretty sure he would have come here over the holidays, but that would also mean a lost opportunity to carve out our image, gather followers and (most importantly) dabble in the dark arts. Tom also still had to find out about his relation to Salazar Slytherin. So… I didn’t dare take his focus off his studies.   
And now… I was pretty sure he wouldn’t wait until summer to get here, if he got even a whiff of me being in some kind of danger – which I wasn’t, but HE wouldn’t see it that way – and that would endanger his scholarship and therefore his educational career. 

So, I kept my mouth firmly shut. 

School was so easy there was talk about me changing schools midyear. They gave me test after test and finally determined with eyes that nearly popped out of their sockets, that I probably would be able to take the last school year, together with 14 year-olds.  
Yes, imagine my surprise, kids only went to school until they were 14 in the thirties. There were talks underway to raise the age to 15, but no practical steps had been taken in that direction yet.   
But did I really want to go to school with kids nearly three times my age?  
On the other hand, I then had proof of a completed muggle education as soon as by next year.   
Which… was good, now that I thought about it. After all, September 1939 marked the start of World War II for the British. So… maybe I really should finish this before everything went to hell. At least I wouldn’t have to search for teachers to give me my diploma.   
…  
Were there diplomas in the Thirties? 

Anyway, it was probably for the best.   
I also hadn’t told Tom about my academic prowess. I just told him I did very well and that school was no problem for me.   
It didn’t feel right to lie to him, though, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to breach the subject. So I just… didn’t mention it. 

So, time passed. I changed schools and didn’t have any problems following the curriculum, much to my much older (er… younger) classmates’ ire. But they left me alone. No one wanted to be known as “the one who bullied the toddler”. 

At the end of February though, something in my rather boring routine changed.   
It wasn’t anything big, but I noticed a change in Father Joseph’s behaviour and… now my alarm-bells rang full on.   
I had naively thought that maybe he wanted to bring up someone who would follow his word immediately and maybe do illegal stuff for him, like many orphans did for others. 

I should have known better. 

Catholic priests I would have immediately suspected of paedophilia, had they acted the way father Joseph had. But he was Anglican, he was allowed to marry, so I had thought myself safe on that account.   
How wrong I had been.  
I cursed myself. Why exactly did I still generalize, even though I knew from experience that religion had nothing to do with being a predator? 

After a VERY awkward meeting with the priest, I stood in the hallway in front of the matron’s office and stared at the door.   
It… wasn’t like anything had happened. Father Joseph had made me sit in his lap again, but instead of asking if I had been good, he had asked if I would be a good girl for him, leering at me in a way I had only experienced once, when I had been wearing a bathing suit in summer at the lakeside near where I lived and a group of new refugees had come to the same place.   
Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually pro refugee, especially since I knew quite a few of them personally in my former life and was friends with some, taught a handful of them German, but there was a group in the camp next to where I lived that were really… unsavoury characters. Just like every ethnicity has unsavoury characters. They were… well.   
Let’s just say, one of them left with a broken wrist, in a police car. 

Anyway, back to the present. I was still standing in the hallway, staring at the wall.   
Father Joseph hadn’t really done anything illegal. Besides, who would believe me over the word of a priest?  
I had been lucky with the refugee-situation, thankfully there had been quite a few witnesses. At first I had thought my word would be enough, but… it wasn’t. They actually had wanted to charge me with assault based on racial issues. After the story about them charging me with battery had gone public, witnesses appeared.   
The police hadn’t even spoken with any of them beforehand, the media was on their side, probably afraid of seeming racist.  
Had this happened after the riots on New Year’s Eve 2015/2016 in Cologne, where thousands of women had been assaulted by asylum seekers, they would have reacted rather differently, I assume. But as it was, it hadn’t.   
So… would the matron believe me if I told her he had asked me to be “a good girl” for him? Would she believe me that I knew the look he had given me and had interpreted it correctly? As an (admittedly brilliant) child of five years?

…

I sighed and turned away.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I forgot to post last week. I'm sorry!!! ;____;

_Hogwarts, February 18th, 1939_

_Dear Emma,_

_Today Tharrick thought it would be fun to put a snake in my bed.  
Little did he know that I do not fear them at all. They like me, they talk to me…   
And he regretted it immediately when I sicked the snake on him. You should have heard him squeal like a stuck pig and run like a cat on fire, it was delightful!  
This had some other ramifications, though. Abraxas, he’s a year above myself, has seen everything. He’s the scion of the Malfoy family – insanely rich and with immense political power. So… he saw it and asked me if I was a parselmouth. When I said yes, he blanched. _

_I didn’t know it was THAT unusual. Salazar Slytherin also was one, after all, so they can’t be THAT rare._

_I think he is writing his father about it now. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, but even if it isn’t, I think I’ll be able to turn it around to my advantage. I always do._

_We learned about Grindelohs in DADA yesterday. Don’t ever go swimming anywhere close to seagrass when I am not with you, understood?_

_Oh, and today I had Eliza Rougenot puke up squids for half an hour. The mudblood thought it was prudent to bribe me with a kiss for me doing her homework.  
She will never make that mistake again, I assure you. _

_As an answer to your question… yes, I think Atropa Belladonna is what you’re searching for. Look for it along paths in wooded areas, you should find it there. Take the picture I have drawn for you with you when you hunt it down. And promise me to be careful. Do not come into contact with its juices at any time, understood? And be especially careful of the berries!  
But… if you find some, take a bit more than you need and dry them – leaves, berries, stem, roots, blossoms… I’m sure it will be useful sometime. _

_If it somehow doesn’t work, I expect to be told the whole story.  
You’re mine.  
I don’t share._

_Tom_

 

~~~ 

 

Lost in my own thoughts I ground the dried roots into a fine powder. Unfortunately the patch of Deadly Nightshade, the common name for Atropa Belladonna, hadn’t carried any berries, as it was the beginning of March, but I had been able to collect leaves, some stems, roots and blossoms.   
The Stems I had pressed and extracted a tiny bottle or fluid, the rest I had dried and was now grinding it.   
Separately, of course. 

The fluid I had stored in an empty medicine bottle I had taken from the nurse when she had visited the orphanage. The powder I stored in little cloth bags I had made out of a shirt some idiot had left in the bathroom. 

Finally done, I emptied the improvised mortar (two stones, one formed a little bit like a narrow bowl, the other a nice oval) into the last little bag, closed it carefully and hid it together with the other bags and the little flacon on top of the wardrobe.   
I would need it soon.

 

Father Joseph had taken to petting my hair and knees with his one hand, while his other held me on his lap at my hip, where a thumb found its way under my shirt or blouse to touch skin there more often than not.   
And I really, REALLY had enough. I had told him meekly that I didn’t like being touched like that, but he had just laughed it off and continued.   
I did not know if I was overreacting or not. He still hadn’t exactly done anything that warranted action, but every time I had to enter his assigned room, I really, REALLY wanted to leave again.   
And fast.   
It was a pity that the matrons had made unmistakably clear that I HAD to go. But even if they hadn’t… It was still better that it was me than any of the other children. Even though I didn’t like them. But Father Joseph wasn’t something any of them deserved. Or anyone, for that matter. 

But I was definitely better equipped to handle him than they were.   
I was just awaiting the moment when he did something I could punish him for with a clear conscience. 

The moment came about a week later.   
I had made a grave error. I had focussed my attention on the priest and had left the other children out of my danger-sense. So when they had set me up to take the fall for the theft of some sugary treats, I hadn’t seen it coming.   
The matron had only looked at me and huffed, and told me, the priest had taken over all punishments concerning me.   
Apparently, that didn’t seem suspicious to her at all.   
Whatever. 

But that was how I ended up with Father Joseph taking away my clothes, staring at me and touching me, and then spanking me naked over his lap, while chanting that I had been a bad girl and that he had to do this, that it hurt him far more than it hurt me, while something weird poked me into the stomach and his hands lingered far too long on my bare ass cheeks. 

I wasn’t an innocent woman. I’d once had a boyfriend who had been into this stuff, and I had visited some quite interesting establishments with him, so this was nothing new to me.   
That it happened between a man looking kind of like my grandfather (when I was nearly thirty) and a five-year-old made me sick to my stomach though. 

I’m not going to describe in detail what happened or what I felt then. Everything you need to know is that I felt dirty. Dirty and focussed, actually, because now I had my reason.   
So, the next time I saw the carafe of vine stand in front of the room the priest occupied, I spiked it with a few drops from my trusted little flacon.   
And when he started running around the orphanage only partly dressed, being scared of some sort of nightmarish creature, puking in some corners, losing his control over his bladder and bowel-movements… I personally didn’t really care. 

The matrons did, though.

At first they tried to hush it, but soon the other orphans found out. So, they didn’t have much choice but to first cancel my weekly appointments and then to let him go completely.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it is still this week  >_<  
> Yes, okay, I'm sorry. Again. I seem to be incapable of posting on time. ;__;  
> But now here it is. Have... fun...?

_Hogwarts, March 25th 1939_

_Dear Emma,_

_today I had a very interesting visitor: Lord Malfoy, Abraxas’ father. He brought a snake and wanted me to prove my ability by talking to it. I did and he just stood there, staring at me for a while, before he told me I was probably the last of the line of Slytherin.  
Just imagine, ME being the HEIR of SLYTHERIN, one of the founders of Hogwarts and probably the most powerful wizard in the last millennium! _

_I immediately got all books mentioning him or his family from the library, so that’s what I will be doing this weekend: reading up on my possible ancestors._

_I just wish you were here now. I wish you were with me. Somehow I’ll manage to keep you with me at all times. You’ll see. No one will be able to take you from me ever again._

_To your questions:  
I have experimented and the pronunciation of the wordless spell in your head shouldn’t impede it. It’s probably the intention behind it. If you’re able to picture the results and understand the mechanics behind it, it shouldn’t even need an incantation.   
I have managed an intention-fuelled spell with and without wand after some practice, so it definitely is possible. _

_I wouldn’t use Arum Maculatum. Monkshood isn’t exactly practical either, the taste is said to be abysmal. You could try Foxglove, but you’ll need quite a bit of it. Maybe you should choose Hemlock, that’s probably your best bet. Search for it in damp spaces, on the edge of forests, streams or roadsides. The same rules apply as for the Atropa Belladonna._

_I still want to hear the story behind that._

_Tom_

 

~~~ 

 

I again stood in front of Father Joseph, wearing a dishtowel around my body and holding a tray in my hands.   
The irony wasn’t lost on me.

He looked… positively ghastly. His cheeks had sunken in, his eyes were bloodshot… How he had managed to adopt me against my clear wishes and screaming and crying, looking like that and with his history in the orphanage, was beyond me. Even though he DID look better since he had left us.  
The Nightshade had done its work. He had slowly been poisoned and had then gone into cold withdrawal.   
Now he seemed to be recovered somewhat, but he still looked… like a corpse. 

It had taken me a while to gather my courage, after all, this was no small matter.   
I did my very best to appear as I always did, looking at him fearfully, keeping away from him as best as I could… And then he drank. 

It didn’t take long for him to grimace and move his lips around before he started to retch.   
“Emma? Emma, where are you?!”  
He suddenly asked, sounding panicked. His hands came up and he tried grabbing air, desperately trying to get his hands on me. 

I stayed where I was, safely hidden behind the table. 

He kept calling out for me, first in desperation, then in shock and pain and… then he lost his ability to speak and could only manage to force some unintelligible sounds from his throat.   
I looked on calmly as he fell to the ground and started to spasm, sounding like a wounded pig. 

It… didn’t faze me. Not in the least, actually. This emotional deadness on the other hand worried me, though. Had I lost the last of my humanity when I had killed the man who had murdered my mother? What kind of person was I becoming when I planned and executed a poisoning, a MURDER, in cold blood? Calmly WATCHING him while he… died?

And still, I couldn’t find it in me to regret my actions. Father Joseph deserved to die. It was better for everyone that he was dying now.   
Calmly I watched the neurotoxin do its work and just nodded as the priest took his last breath. 

Good riddance. 

 

Back in the orphanage the children avoided me like the plague.   
“Bad luck charm”, they called me.   
No one knew why Father Joseph had died. They hadn’t tested him for poison and had deduced (together with my tales of his behaviour in the orphanage) that he must have been a drug addict. They had also opened an investigation into how the orphanage would let someone like him adopt a child. 

Maybe they were shocked by the shackles and the dishtowel I was wearing. 

But that was just my interpretation of their actions.

The matrons now seemed to positively loathe me. Had I not learnt the art of stealing food and keeping myself warm, I would probably have starved or frozen to death. Because, yeah, their decision to give me to Father Joseph was entirely my fault.   
Obviously.

That I was obviously too stubborn to die seemed to be another sore point for them for which they could blame me. It was really getting out of hand. My last punishment had been being hit with a stick until I was unconscious, in front of the other children.   
Joy.   
Still, I missed the rage I should be feeling, the humiliation, the hate… Since the day I had killed Father Joseph I felt… cold. Not like freezing, more like… calm. Yeah, that was a better description. It felt as if everything but logic had disappeared from my soul.  
The feeling was… weird.

Was that how “being dead inside” felt like?

I knew that killing someone changed something inside of a person, especially if this someone didn’t do so in the heat of the moment. I had killed my mother’s murderer after coldly weighing my options. I had killed Father Joseph after two full weeks of planning.   
Had I lost a part of my soul? Or was I somehow still in some kind of shock?   
I didn’t know. And I actually didn’t really want to know.   
All I really wanted was for Tom to come back, to tell me about his exploits and… and… and to tell me that everything was going to be okay.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I forgot to update. For months. I'm such an idiot! >_<

I had passed my last exams with straight A’s, so I now held a complete muggle education with barely six years.   
At the end of June I had thrown the Head Matron into the wall so hard she had to go to the hospital.   
Why? She had tried to throw me out on the grounds of me having a completed education and therefore being able to care for myself now. 

A six year old child. 

That was never going to happen, though, I would be here when Tom returned, and there was nothing she could do about it. She could very well try, but just like in everything she had tried the last few weeks, she would fail.  
They feared me, I could tell. The children as well as the adults. The stench of their fear permeated the air when they simply had to come near me.   
I was barred from meals and only allowed to use the washroom at night, when everybody else was asleep. 

I didn’t care. 

They whispered about me being a demon behind my back… and screamed it at my face at every opportunity.   
They had stopped throwing stones at me, however, or trying to set my room on fire with me in it. The stones had turned around mid-throw and gone back to the ones they had originated from.   
One boy had lost an eye from the last incident of this kind.   
The fire they had set had singed our wardrobe, but I had snuffed it out with nothing but a look. One day later two children, one girl and one boy, had had to be sent to the doctor with burns on their head. It would probably take years for their hair to grow again.   
If it ever would. 

I simply waited for Tom to come back, it was my sole focus.   
And then, finally, the day had come.

I stood at King’s cross station, at platform 9 ¾, and ignored the confused looks I was getting from the adult witches and wizards around me. It must be weird for a six-year-old to pick up a sibling on her own, dressed in clothes that were held together with magic alone, as it seemed.   
Nobody talked to me, though. 

The Hogwarts Express arrived and the doors opened. Children and teenagers streamed out, but I had to wait a while for the one I wanted to appear.   
Tom left the train unhurried, with a quiet air of confidence he hadn’t possessed the year before. Nine Slytherins followed in his wake, seven boys and two girls, who looked like they were following and protecting their leader. Which… probably was exactly what this was.   
He had grown quite a bit in the ten months I hadn’t seen him. His hair was longer too. His skin was still pale, but it didn’t look as sallow and near sickly as when he had left. He looked… healthier and more at ease than I had ever seen him.  
Hogwarts agreed with him.

Tom’s eyes found me immediately, as if I was a beacon he had attuned himself to. His eyes took in the state of my clothes and that I had lost quite a bit of weight, thanks to having to steal everything. I hadn’t grown all that much either.  
His eyes narrowed, but I just shook my head nearly unperceptively.   
Parents of the other Slytherins came up to the group to introduce themselves to my adopted brother. Obviously, his housemates had written home about the prodigy in their midst.   
I didn’t want them to associate him with an urchin like me, so when he met my eyes the next time, I nodded to the exit into the muggleworld.   
I would wait there. 

It took Tom a while to extricate himself from his new fans and to leave the wizarding platform. Aware of the eyes, he nodded at me with a polite smile and walked on, me by his side.  
After King’s Cross was far behind me, a hand sneaked onto my shoulder and squeezed rather painfully, but I didn’t let the pain show. I was still black and blue from the last punishment and his newfound strength wasn’t helping.   
Tom then whirled me around and enveloped me in a fierce hug that had my ribs nearly cracking.   
Air whooshed out of my lungs. And suddenly… suddenly the apathy of the last few months just… vanished. As if I had expelled it with the air he had pressed out of me.   
Tears pooled in my eyes and a pitiful wail left my throat, as I grabbed him and burrowed my fingers in the fabric of his shirt and his hair until my joints started to protest, but I didn’t care. 

Tom was back. My Tom. 

“Merlin, I missed you”, Tom mumbled into my hair.   
We stood in the middle of the street, but couldn’t care less about that fact. When it got dark, Tom just picked me up and carried me monkey-style back to the orphanage (his trunk was nowhere to be seen), where he immediately went into our room and sat down onto what had long become OUR bed, me in his lap.   
I was still crying, unable to stop the tears leaking from my eyes. 

What the hell?! I was bloody 35 years old by now! I should be able to cope with ten months of separation!   
…  
Okay, maybe I was working through everything I had done and gone through in the last few months as well.  
Still, this was getting rather ridiculous.   
I tried to let go of the black-haired boy, but as soon as my fingers had loosened, they already clamped back down and my arms started squeezing my poor adopted brother nearly to death.

Not that he was complaining.

“I have wished for you to be with me every waking minute. And many sleeping ones as well”, Tom confided and I wanted to answer, but everything that left my mouth was a pathetic whimper.

Bloody hell! What in the devil’s name was wrong with me?!

 

Three hours later we were lying on the bed, still clutching each other, though not as tightly as before. Tom had started to pet my hair and neck and I was feeling… well… very cat-like. Like I could start purring every second now.   
Like this he regaled me with tales of Hogwarts, of the students who called themselves his friends, but were nothing more than a means to an end for him, of the teachers who sang his praises, of his head of house, Professor Horace Slughorn, who called him a genius, of the Hogwarts ghosts and feasts and secret passageways and on and on it went.   
Then though came the point where his hands stilled and he gave me a sharp look. 

“So, now that I have told you about my exploits, I expect you to tell me everything I have missed.”

I squirmed. There were things I didn’t want him to know.   
Many things, actually.   
But he was my only friend and my only family here. I was reluctant to lie to him or even hold something back. Such behaviour had been the death of some good people in the Harry Potter books.   
So, I took a deep breath and started my own tale. About Father Joseph and how he tried to influence me, about the touching I hadn’t wanted, about the matrons who never seemed to suspect anything, about my experiment with nightshade, about him being let go, about me being called a monster, a demon, but never to my face, about me getting adopted by the priest, against my will, about his treatment of me, about my dabbling with Hemlock, about my return and about the treatment I had gotten afterwards, by staff and orphans alike.   
Tom had seemingly turned to stone.   
I then told him that the muggle world was in unrest; that I suspected war to come and shatter our little world.   
When I quieted, he didn’t move.   
He didn’t move or speak for quite some time, actually. Had I not felt the tension in the arms that held me far more secure than any shackle could, I would have thought him asleep. 

I couldn’t even detect his breathing. 

Then, like the quietest whisper, I could hear him say something: “I’m not going to leave you again.”  
Wait.  
Did he mean he wouldn’t go back to Hogwarts? That wouldn’t do! I absolutely couldn’t allow that!  
“I lived through this year”, I told him seriously, holding his face, paler than usual, between my hands, “I will live through another. Your education is the most important thing now. You get an education, you get a good job, and we get out of here. You’ll need to take care of the two of us until I finish school. I will work in the summer to help, of course. But it’s important for you to finish your education, otherwise we will never rise over this scum!”

…

Wait. Had I just called muggles “scum”?!  
Uhm… I had been a muggle for nearly 30 years. What exactly had happened there?  
…  
Oh well. I had meant the people in this orphanage.   
Yeah.

Maybe I would start believing that at some point.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for not posting the next 3-4 weeks, I won't be... uhm... on this continent. XD  
> I hope you'll still like this chapter. :)

Summer was amazing and scary all at once. Tom was… mad. Spitting mad. And everyone in the orphanage got to suffer his wrath.   
I will not go into details about what he did to them, but they were all very, VERY much looking forward to September. 

When Tom didn’t take revenge, we spent our time either in our room or in the forest, where he taught me what he had learned in his first year. Since I had had quite a lot of practice over the year, and knew quite a bit about it anyway, I internalized the theory as soon as he told me. I also got better and better at using certain spells (wandless, of course), although I still preferred being able to do magic by intention. The only thing actual spells had on intention-fuelled magic was that you could control exactly what would happen. With intention-fuelled magic it was never clear how the desired results would be reached, just that they would – by which means was uncertain.  
With spells you knew exactly what would happen – just not, if it would get the desired results. 

So, I had trained both. 

Tom seemed very happy with what I had accomplished over the ten months he had been gone, and soon we were both working on his summer assignments. He did his own and I… acted like I had to do them as well. We both looked over the other’s essays, gave some commentary and changed a few things afterwards.

That’s how time passed. No one dared to do anything against one of us – together we were far stronger.   
And scarier, obviously. 

Tom’s Hogwarts letter arrived together with a small pouch of coins and his new… fourth-hand books.   
There also was a list of Tom’s grades attached (Os in every subject) and a letter from Headmaster Dippet:

 

Hogwarts, July 25th 1939

Dear Mr. Riddle,

I hope summer agrees with you. 

The stipend-council was very impressed by your academic performance this year, so they doubled your yearly allowance.   
Please visit Diagon Alley with your legal guardians and spend the money wisely.

Regards,

Professor Armando Dippet, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

 

Tom and I shared a look. Legal guardians? Definitely not. But the money was something we could definitely use.

So, we walked into London early the next day, had a few problems locating the Leaky Cauldron at first, but managed to enter Diagon Alley nonetheless. It was quieter than the last time we had been here, as it was still rather early, but not deserted. 

We first got Tom everything he would need for the next year, but when we were at Malkin’s (Tom brought back his old robes, which were in better condition than when he had bought them, which got him the new sets nearly for free), Tom also insisted on buying me two very cheap outfits (also second-hand, of course) with said discount, so I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable being seen with him anymore.   
Not that I had, actually.   
I had thought that HE would have.   
But hey. 

After we had gotten everything and had realized that we had quite a bit of money left, we shared a look and immediately headed over to Flourish & Blott’s.   
Books. Books were the best thing ever, that much was clear. While we walked there, Tom quietly told me a bit about the Hogwarts library.   
I wanted to go there! I wanted to work there! I wanted to LIVE there!  
…  
Would anyone miss the librarian of this time? 

Inside the bookshop we then split up, determined to only get two books each – more wouldn’t fit our budget.   
Okay, what to take, what to take…   
It was like having to decide between thousands of dark ocumare pralines, where every piece of chocolate had its very own spice.   
Quite impossible.   
Still, after about two hours in the bookshop I had decided on a book on magical theory and spellcrafting, and one about… well… more or less magical job orientation and the NEWTs, OWLs and further educational steps that were required to qualify. Tom chose one on Wizarding History and one on Arithmancy. At first he had chosen one on spellcrafting, but after having seen my selection, he had taken the text on Arithmancy instead, which was needed for spellcrafting anyway. 

With our new booty in hand we knew how the rest of the summer would be spent. 

 

On August 31st Tom had already packed his trunk, although it was still half empty. He didn’t take many clothes, as he didn’t own that much, and most of his things he would get in Hogwarts anyway. The books were what took up the most space.   
In the night I heard him getting up and doing stuff, but I was too tired to care. He was probably nervous. Or worried about me.   
In the morning (we were up far earlier than usual, again), he stared in his just half filled trunk with a weird expression on his face.   
“It’s a joke, isn’t it? I’m the best student by far, and I am the one with the least belongings.”  
I didn’t see the joke, but okay. So I just nodded dutifully.   
“I mean, it’s so darned empty, you would fit in there as well!”  
I snorted. “Well, I don’t know about THAT.”  
One of his eyebrows rose in challenge and I rolled my eyes. Of course he would. With a sigh I got up and rolled myself into a ball. Actually… yeah, I did fit in there. 

Suddenly, he closed the lid. 

What the…?!   
For a second I was in shock, then my heart started racing. Before I could start to hyperventilate, though, Tom opened it again.   
“Yeah, you fit”, he just stated.  
I could do nothing but stare at him. He knew I hated tight spaces. He KNEW!  
He then pulled a potion out and held it out for me.   
“Drink this.”

Yeah, right.   
As if I would just drink anything he gave me, without an explanation.

“Please, Em…”

…

Oh, fuck it.   
I was such a sucker for his pleading.

Grumbling I grabbed the vial (where had he gotten that, anyway?) and drank the disgusting concoction down in one go.   
“Ugh”, I commented on the taste, but wasn’t able to formulate any more words.

Everything went dark.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back from Asia and... you know... I was gone for three weeks. THREE. And what happened? I had so many comments, I didn't even know where to start! O_O  
> Thank you all so much!!!

I woke up to the extremely pleasant taste of earth, ash, vomit, and unwashed socks and spluttered and coughed and started to panic. I couldn’t see anything and someone was feeding me something that didn’t taste healthy. I kicked and hit and tried to scream, but a strong hand covered my mouth and forced me to swallow. 

“Shhh… Shhh…”

It took a while for my brain to process the information my ears were sending it. It was Tom. Tom was trying to calm me down.   
It took me a while to get my heartrate down to halfway normal, but as I had managed it, my sight cleared. 

I was… not in the orphanage anymore.   
I lay on a bed that completely shut out the room it was standing in, since the bed curtains were drawn closed. The… dark green and black curtains with little silver snake-embroideries.   
The bedding was also black and green and the ceiling was… stone. Big blocks of dark stone, reminding me of medieval castles. 

Huh.

“I am not as confident in my silencing wards as I would like yet, so, we’ll have to whisper. No screaming!”  
No… no screaming. Right.   
Wait. WHAT???  
Bed with curtains, green, black, silver, snakes, medieval looking ceiling… 

I was in Hogwarts!!!

“Uhm… Tom…”, I began carefully, “not that I’m not glad not to be left in the orphanage… but… HOW exactly were you planning on hiding me in a DORM?!”

It was the first time ever I had seen Tom really… overwhelmed. Like he didn’t have a clue. 

It was really… cute.

“Okay, first things first. What did you give me and how did you get me in here?”  
Tom’s grin was slightly wobbly, but I would accept it and act as if I hadn’t seen anything.   
“I gave you a sleeping potion. You don’t like tight spaces, so that was the only way to get you to stay in my trunk. I just… carried you in it. And brought you here. I then gave you the antidote and… well… here we are.”  
Yes, I had never seen him so flustered. I could tell that he hadn’t thought this through. Even though he HAD had these potions, probably stole them in his first year or something, it was clear as day that he had acted on instinct.   
“I brought some of your stuff…”, he murmured, sheepishly. 

Alrighty then. 

So, Tom didn’t have a plan.   
That only meant I would have to plan for the both of us. 

“So, night isn’t going to be a problem, I’ll just sleep with you. I’ll have to get up before the others and hide in your wardrobe, so you’ll need to put your clothes out in the evening.”  
Tom just nodded.   
He was kind of… subdued. Like he felt guilty for not consulting me first. 

But that was idiotic.   
Tom NEVER felt guilty. 

“I’ll wait for you all to leave for classes. I won’t come out before, in case one of you forgets something. I’ll then be able to take a shower. Then… then, I’ll look for the kitchen. It can’t be that hard to find, so you won’t have to constantly sneak food for me.”  
Tom just nodded.   
Odd.

“For the day I’ll find a room to stay in. You’ll have to provide me with ample reading material. I would also appreciate you somehow getting me my own set of the second year school books. The library should have them, I think. I’ll learn the same as you do and do the same homework, but you’ll have to be available for questions sometimes.”  
The shadow of a grin appeared on Tom’s lips and I knew he had found his footing again.   
“And while everyone is eating dinner you’ll sneak back in here for the night. Perfect.”  
With that he flung himself on me, so we both lay flat now, me on my back, him leaning on his elbows, looking down at me. His right hand came up and started playing with my hair.   
“I’m so glad you’re here, Em. I just… I just couldn’t leave you there. I tried, but… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”  
A sigh crept past my lips and I wrapped my arms around his neck.   
“Don’t worry. But… talk to me before you do something like that the next time. Please. The only thing why I’m not spitting mad is, because… well, first, it’s you. You wouldn’t hurt me. Well… more than necessary. And you would never betray me. And second… I’m glad to be out of the orphanage, honestly. We’ll make it work, don’t worry.”  
The tiny spark of worry in his eyes died and a charming smile appeared. Holla, that guy would be breaking hearts in no time, if he kept smiling like that! And he was just twelve! 

“Good. Sleep now, though.”

And I did. 

 

The next day was a Saturday. It was nice for the students; they could get reacquainted and settle in, but it was more than annoying on my end.   
I spent the entire day on edge. Tom had brought me quite a bit of water and some food, but the biggest problem was getting to the toilet. 

That was really interesting. 

I didn’t have a problem spending my day in the wardrobe. It was rather chilly in here and quite spacious, and Tom had laid it out with pillows and had given me a warm blanket and my camel to cuddle, and since I knew I would be able to get out anytime I wanted, my claustrophobia hadn’t kicked in yet. Add to that a little gap between the wardrobe doors for me to look through, two of Tom’s school books and a small mage-light and I was quite happy. Or… I would have been, had this idiotic blonde (obviously a Malfoy) not taken up residence in his bed. 

I needed to use the bloody toilet, damn it!

But that idiot just wouldn’t and wouldn’t leave. When he finally deigned to grace the great hall with his presence, it was nearly lunch time and I shot out and into the bathroom to relieve myself. 

I don’t think I have ever moved that fast. 

At least Sunday they mostly spent in the Common Room, so I had a bit more freedom. But one thing was clear, I DEFINITELY needed another place to spend my weekends, this just SO wouldn’t do. 

And NO WAY was I getting a chamber pot. 

 

Then, finally, the first day of school, September 4th, had arrived. As soon as Tom and the other Slytherins had left the room for their respective classes, I left the house behind me and tiptoed through the dungeons.   
It was less wet than I had feared and actually… kind of cosy. 

I liked old castles, anyway. 

First on the agenda was finding a place to stay on weekends. Or… a place to stay, period. And the kitchen. Although… that was quite easy. Since I knew where to look for it, it didn’t take long for me to find the pear I had to tickle and, therefore, the house elves.   
When the door opened, the quiet murmur I had heard disappeared immediately and a weird silence made me feel less than welcome.   
Oh well, I just had to play upon their helpfulness. And I’d need to play up my being a little girl.   
So, I looked at them curiously, big, dark eyes glimmering in the soft lighting, and smiling a shy smile, showing off the gap, where I had lost a front tooth just two weeks ago.   
“Uhm… hello…?”, I asked, intentionally unsure sounding, and looked from one to the other.   
They looked… weird. Their heads were far too big for their bodies, the big floppy ears not helping any. They were also… thin. VERY thin. Well, not that I wasn’t. But they were positively spindly. And their eyes… they reminded me of frog eyes. 

But still, they were kind of… cute. 

“I’m Emma”, I said, gifted them with another shy smile and waved. 

I could practically see them melting. Immediately, they swarmed around me, cooed and pulled me into the warm room, smelling like freshly baked bread and bacon. 

Uuuuh, I wanted bacon!   
I had no idea when I had last been able to taste bacon!

The elves didn’t act around me the way they had acted in the books or movies. Well… I was far younger, to be fair, and the Hogwarts elves had never really been characterized – aside from Dobby and Winky.   
These elves here were elated to have a child to spoil, and they even elected one of their own to look after me in the future. The little elf boy Dot was obviously the youngest of the lot and a little unsure, but very enthusiastic.   
I liked him immediately.   
And he brought me fresh bread, scrambled eggs and bacon. And a huge helping of seasoned tomatoes. That endeared him to me even more.   
The elves also promised (if rather reluctantly) not to tell any teachers or the headmaster, if not asked directly. And since none of them talked to them, really, that wasn’t that big of a problem. 

Next I tried to find the Room of Requirement. But, contrary to what most fanfictions let you believe, it’s not easy to find with the sole information of it being located on Hogwarts’ seventh floor, across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.   
First of all, the seventh floor was freaking HUGE, and second… there were hundreds of tapestries there, and none had their name engraved in a handy little plaque. And they also didn’t react when I tried to talk to them. 

Maybe it was only the portraits being able to communicate. 

Anyway, so, I had no idea where to look for that stupid room apart from the hundreds of meters the corridors on the seventh floor spanned. Should I walk the space across from every single tapestry in here, three times over, until the room would finally open?   
Seemed like this was the only way to finding it…   
I grimaced. Wonderful. Until I was through, it would be lunch-time and the students would be bound to run through this corridor. Not counting the ones who had to switch classrooms between lessons. And where would that leave me?  
I decided to do the first few, and that I would then hide in some empty classroom for the room change, then try some more, then hide while the others were eating lunch (while asking Dot for some snacks) and continuing when the afternoon classes had started. 

So I looked and looked, walked past tapestry after tapestry, there, back, there; there, back, there.   
Still, no door showed itself.   
Damn.  
Oh well, I still had the rest of the week to find it.   
Or someplace else. 

While everyone was eating dinner in the Great Hall I again hid in the wardrobe in Tom’s dorm room, equipped with a bowl of hearty stew Dot had brought me. He had… looked rather put out by my choice of bed, but hadn’t said anything and just popped away when I had finished my meal. I also hurriedly used the bathroom and brushed my teeth afterwards, so I wouldn’t have to come out anytime soon.


End file.
